The Senate has passed legislation to tighten central bank oversight of the country’s largest payment platforms, days after the CBN issued new rules for dollar-backed stablecoins. Whether the two moves will push users toward offshore alternatives is a live question, but one that current data cannot answer.

The Senate passed a bill on its third reading Tuesday, November 10, allowing the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to tag major fintechs and other non-bank financial outfits as “Systemically Important Institutions.” The bill, SB.959, changes the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020.

After passing second reading on December 4, 2025, the bill went over to the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions. It hasn’t become law yet. It still needs the House of Representatives to agree and the president to sign off.

A second regulatory shift

Just five days ahead of the Senate vote, the CBN dropped its Rules for Non-Security Virtual Assets on November 5, 2026. The rules say issuers of foreign-currency stablecoins, like USDT and USDC, need at least ₦15 billion, while naira-backed issuers have to have ₦10 billion. These rules cover overseas firms targeting Nigerians, even without any offices in the country.

The rules also clamp down on the peer-to-peer market. You need to have dedicated approval for platforms, and P2P actions must go through BVN verification. If a stablecoin’s naira value stays above ₦500 billion every day for 30 days straight, or if more than five million Nigerians use or own it, it’s considered systemic.

Stablecoins were already surging

Nigerians were already using stablecoins way before they made either of those rules. Between 2023 and early 2025, the naira dropped over 60% against the dollar, inflation hit over 20% sometimes, and people started using stablecoins to protect their money and receive money from abroad.

According to Chainalysis, Nigeria saw $38.1 billion in crypto action from mid-2025 to mid-2026, and P2P stablecoin activity shot up from $2.3 billion in 2022 to $14.6 billion by 2026. Over 65% of crypto inflows into Nigeria are in stablecoins, according to an IMF report. Nigeria came in third worldwide in the 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

The IMF has also voiced some worries. The warning was that if stablecoins spread fast, it could hurt the naira’s demand and make domestic monetary policy less effective. There’s a regulated local option called the naira-backed cNGN, which kicked off in 2025 with the CBN and Securities and Exchange Commission monitoring things.

Analysis: a plausible risk, not yet a documented trend

You could say that cracking down on fintechs will drive people to use stablecoins instead. The reasoning makes sense. Of course, if people start thinking regulated platforms are too risky, some might shift their assets to self-custodied wallets that the bill doesn’t cover. Even though the new rules are mainly trying to fix that loophole.

So far, the evidence hasn’t shown it. Nothing from the exchange or blockchain records connects Tuesday’s vote to the rise in naira-to-stablecoin conversions. People were moving to stablecoins way before the bill, and the CBN’s rules on November 5 came even earlier. If P2P volumes shift in the next few weeks, it won’t be easy to pin it on just the rules. But let’s watch.

The bill targets big companies like payment apps and digital lenders that the CBN formally labels as important to the financial system. It does not apply to ordinary people. If you keep your own crypto in a personal wallet that you control, the bill doesn’t reach it.

The CBN would be allowed to look into a designated company’s systems so it can supervise it. That means checking its records, how it handles data, and how it manages risk. But that is different from having free, unlimited access to everything on the company’s servers, including every customer’s account whenever it likes.

Think of a health inspector at a restaurant. The inspector can come in, check the kitchen and read the records. That is not the same as having a key to the building and the right to go through everything, including your private belongings, at any time.

There’s a liquidity stat going around in this chat that you should watch out for. Banks had ₦5.915 trillion at the CBN’s Standing Deposit Facility on November 9, dropping from ₦8.311 trillion on November 6. It’s a short-term look at the banking system’s cash flow. It doesn’t show how much the public trusts banks or fintechs.