AI, local payments, and Nigeria’s new compliance playbook
AI is reshaping payments in Nigeria. Discover how dLocal uses AI for fraud prevention, smart routing and AML compliance in line with the CBN’s new guidelines.
In Lagos this February, at the launch of GenAI Learning Concepts Ltd, dLocal's Nigeria Country Manager Bashir Yusuf spoke about a simple but powerful idea: AI only becomes transformative when it is embedded in the local payment rails that citizens and governments already rely on.
Days later, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) formally wrote AI into its anti‑money‑laundering (AML) framework, requiring banks, fintechs, and payment companies to deploy automated AML systems powered by AI and machine learning.
The direction of travel is clear: Nigeria wants smarter compliance, not just more of it.
Why AI belongs in local payment systems
dLocal is a technology company that bridges global digital platforms with consumers and businesses in emerging markets. With a single connection, more than 760 international companies can accept 1000 local payment methods across over 40 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. We simplify local regulations, payment methods, and risk so that cross‑border payments feel local for users and governments alike.
In Nigeria and every other market we serve, our model is to reinforce national payment ecosystems, not route around them. We process on local networks, partner with domestic banks and payment service providers, and comply with local regulation.
That supports:
- Visibility over cross‑border digital transactions.
- Taxability when activity flows through formal domestic channels.
- Resilience by keeping local institutions at the centre of the system.
As the CBN shifts from manual to AI‑enabled monitoring, this local‑first architecture matters. It ensures that when AI models flag suspicious activity, the underlying flows are onshore, explainable, and enforceable rather than disappearing into offshore grey zones.
Explore how dLocal supports local rails in Nigeria and beyond.
How dLocal uses AI today
In his Lagos remarks, Bashir Yusuf highlighted three layers where dLocal already relies on AI:
- Fraud prevention and security
Our fraud detection system combines machine‑learning models, expert rules, and external data to distinguish legitimate users from fraudsters in real time. This helps us detect unusual patterns that static rules miss and reduce false alerts by up to 90%, so genuine customers are not blocked unnecessarily.
- Smart routing and reliability
Each transaction can pass through multiple banks, processors, and networks. We use AI‑driven Smart Routing to choose the optimal path for each payment, lifting approval rates and reducing failures. For a student paying exam fees or a citizen renewing a licence, moving from an 80% to a 95% success rate can be the difference between progress and frustration.
- Compliance, AML, and operations
Traditional rule‑only compliance tools struggle with modern transaction volumes. Our AI‑driven monitoring systems continuously learn from data and investigator feedback, surfacing only the most relevant anomalies for human review and streamlining enforcement of AML and other regulations.
We also apply AI to customer and merchant support, cutting first‑response times from days to minutes while keeping humans in the loop for complex cases — which ultimately means fewer escalations to regulators and public agencies.
This is exactly the direction the CBN's new AML standards are pushing toward: risk‑based, automated monitoring with human oversight and explainability built in.
Inclusion, sovereignty, and the next phase of regulation
For AI to deliver on its promise, it must also expand access, not just tighten controls.
In many of our markets, international cards reach only a minority of the population, while hundreds of millions hold local accounts, wallets, or cards. If those methods cannot be used to access global digital services, entire segments are left outside the digital economy.
One example Yusuf shared: when Microsoft introduced local acquiring for naira cards in Nigeria, it used dLocal's Payins solution to support widely used local payment methods, enabling SMEs in places like Kano or Lagos to pay directly for tools like Microsoft 365 in naira. Those transactions remain local, visible, taxable — and increasingly AI‑optimised.
For a broader view of how local rails and cross‑border infrastructure shape access to essential services, you can read our piece on instant cross‑border payments in healthcare.
The opportunity ahead
Bashir Yusuf closed his Lagos remarks with an important reminder: AI does not replace human judgment; it amplifies it. The most durable progress will come when regulators, payment providers, and technology firms work together to deploy AI that is transparent, explainable, and auditable.
As Nigeria implements its new AI‑enabled AML framework, and as more volume flows through digital channels, our focus at dLocal is clear:
- Keep payments local, visible, taxable, and secure
- Use AI to strengthen — not weaken — payment sovereignty
- Ensure that smarter compliance also supports financial inclusion and growth
That is the opportunity in front of Nigeria's payment ecosystem today — and the role we at dLocal aims to play across emerging markets tomorrow.
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