The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Communications Commission have unveiled a joint framework to tackle failed airtime and data purchases.
The initiative targets recurring cases where customers are debited without receiving purchased services.
The proposal was published as an exposure draft on the CBN’s website on Monday.
It was developed by the CBN’s Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion Department in collaboration with the NCC.
Banks, mobile network operators, payment service providers and other stakeholders contributed to the draft.
Regulators said the framework aims to address growing complaints linked to digital payments and telecom services.
The draft seeks to clarify responsibility for transaction failures across the financial and telecom sectors.
It also proposes standard timelines for resolving complaints and a coordinated redress mechanism.
Director of Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion at the CBN, Dr. Aisha Isa-Olatinwo, signed the document.
She said the framework would institutionalise accountability and ensure consistent consumer protection standards.
According to the draft, failed transactions must trigger automatic refunds within 30 seconds.
Refunds are required regardless of whether the fault lies with banks, operators or licensed service providers.
The framework discourages manual reversals and promotes automated, system-triggered refunds.
It recommends end-to-end transaction visibility and uniform error codes across platforms.
Banks are directed to limit transaction retries to two attempts only.
Customers must receive real-time notifications indicating transaction status.
The draft stated that failure notifications create binding settlement obligations between operators and licensees.
It outlined a dispute resolution process beginning with dialogue between affected parties.
Unresolved disputes after five working days would be escalated to the CBN and NCC.
The proposal includesu a central monitoring dashboard to track complaints and service failures.
The dashboard would allow regulators nationwide visibility into reversals and service level breaches.
Stakeholders and members of the public have been invited to submit comments by February 20, 2026.
