Zone hits ₦1trn in transactions as Nigerian banks pick blockchain

Zone, the Nigerian payments infrastructure company, has processed over ₦1 trillion in transactions on its blockchain network between November 2022 and December 2024, according to the company’s CEO, Obi Emetarom. It recorded 100 million transactions, averaging ₦10,000 per transaction. While blockchain adoption in banking remains limited, most of these transactions were processed on automated teller machines (ATMs)—a first for blockchain-powered payments at this scale in Nigeria. 

This milestone comes despite the decline of ATM usage. In the past three years, ATM transaction values have declined from ₦32.65 trillion in 2022 to ₦28.2 trillion in 2023, as customers shift toward Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals and digital payments. Twelve banks currently use Zone’s blockchain network, but few use the technology to process ATM transactions.

“If there was wider adoption of ATMs, [reaching ₦1 trillion in transactions] would have been faster,” said Obi Emetarom, Zone CEO and co-founder. “We used the ATM as a pilot to [introduce something new]. We didn’t want to start loading our system with heavy transactions, so we chose a transaction type that is manageable to build a credible system.”

While Zone’s network allows these banks to achieve faster settlement rates on ATM transactions, others are in the system for another reason: ZonePoS, which allows them to process POS payments on the blockchain.

After acquiring a switching licence in 2022, Zone launched a test phase for its blockchain network on ATMs in November. The initial blocker was onboarding banks and convincing regulators that activities performed on the network could be compliant, helping them to automate many of the processes that manual audits typically revealed. The rollout in late 2022 was a successful pilot, opening the pathway for the startup to launch commercially in January 2023. Since then, Zone has worked closely with banks.

“The real issue that affects traditional financial institutions is the fear of non-compliance of existing blockchains and DeFi solutions,” said Emetarom. “[Financial institutions] don’t want to risk being fined or their licences withdrawn.”

Emetarom claims that Zone’s Layer-1 blockchain reaches 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) “right out of the box.” Seeing how this worked for ATMs and the surge in POS transactions, Zone extended its blockchain network to terminal payments.

In June 2024, Zone expanded its blockchain network to POS terminals, and in August, the company partnered with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), the country’s payment switch, to record POS transactions on its blockchain ledger. The move allows NIBSS to manage the interaction between the cardholder’s bank and the POS terminal on Zone’s regulated blockchain.

The partnership was expected to kick off in October 2024, with NIBSS being fully integrated into Zone’s blockchain ecosystem, which would mark the first time a major regulator operated on such a scale within any blockchain framework. 

However, the integration faced delays due to NIBSS’s institutional structure and the lack of clarity around the stance of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Despite reaching the agreement with NIBSS in August 2024, the CBN only approved the partnership in December.

“NIBSS, being a regulated entity, is very institutional-based. There are strict processes to follow to make sure things go according to the project cycle that [NIBSS] has,” said Emetarom.

Zone has added NIBSS to a testnet on its blockchain. The company is still testing its network to ensure data integrity and preparing the live environment for the payment switch to perform its PTSA function. For now, Zone is collecting and storing POS terminal identities on its network. While it isn’t yet fully operational for storing payment records, a handshake with NIBSS allows it to verify these terminal IDs on the blockchain, said Emetarom.

The rollout of Zone’s blockchain to POS payments is cautious to maintain the trust of regulators. Emerarom is confident of exporting Zone’s technology across Nigeria’s borders in the coming years, although, according to him, no talks have been established between other foreign financial institutions. 

The startup also declined to share its revenue numbers, citing a “confidentiality clause” from its investors.

For its next act, Zone will take its blockchain payment rail to businesses that provide account-to-account fund transfers, bringing its technology closer to the average Nigerian.