CBN opens applications for second regulatory sandbox cohort
The CBN has opened applications for the second cohort of its regulatory sandbox, with a focus on stablecoins, open banking, and fraud prevention.
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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has opened applications for the second cohort of its regulatory sandbox.
The sandbox is seeking applications from financial institutions building solutions around fiat-backed stablecoin payments, digital wallet infrastructure, stablecoin exchanges, open banking, fraud prevention, real-time risk analytics, and other financial innovations.
Applications opened on August 11, 2026, and will close on August 31, 2026. The CBN previously launched its first regulatory sandbox in 2023 as part of its efforts to provide a controlled environment for testing innovative financial products and services before their wider deployment.
The renewed focus on virtual assets and data-enabled financial services reflects broader developments in Nigeria’s financial system. After nearly a decade spent either ignoring or antagonising the mainstream use of virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies, President Bola Tinubu signed an executive order establishing a Virtual Assets Council.
The council is expected to streamline virtual asset regulation and improve coordination among the relevant government agencies. It also comes against the backdrop of growing stablecoin adoption by financial institutions seeking faster and more efficient ways to move money across the continent.
On the other hand, years of advocacy for open banking culminated in the issuance of the CBN’s open banking operational guidelines in 2025.
However, those guidelines have not been followed by a clear timeline for the rollout of open banking activities in the country. As such, players in the financial services sector will hope that a sandbox explicitly requesting applications from open banking providers signals that the framework is moving closer to full implementation.
Applicants to the sandbox are expected to submit documentation covering board or management approvals, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policies, as well as corporate and regulatory information. They will be assessed on the degree of innovation and potential market benefit of their solutions, governance structures, technical operations, consumer protection measures, and overall readiness to participate in the controlled testing environment.
