L-R: Wakilat Sanusi Olanrewaju, Deputy Director, Information Technology, CBN; Santhosh Rao, MD for Middle East & Africa, Temenos; Omoyemen Jide-Samuel, Director Information Technology, CBN; Mitchell Elegbe, Group CEO, Interswitch and Houssam Chaker, Sales Director, Temenos during the Interswitch-Temenos Joint Courtesy Visit to the CBN Headquarters in Abuja recently.
Joint delegation, led by Interswitch Group CEO Mitchell Elegbe and Temenos MEA Managing Director Santhosh Rao, explores new frontiers of innovation in areas such as core banking modernization, financial crime mitigation and Central Bank Digital Currency innovation.
Lagos, Nigeria – Interswitch Group, Africa’s leading integrated digital payments and commerce company, together with global banking software provider Temenos, jointly paid a courtesy visit to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last week, in a continued demonstration of their strategic partnership to advance the modernization of Nigeria’s financial services sector.
It would be recalled that earlier in June 2026, Interswitch and Temenos officially announced a strategic partnership across Africa which will see Interswitch leverage Temenos solutions – across core banking, digital banking, payments, wealth management and financial crime mitigation – to provide cloud-hosted and on-premises managed services to banks and financial institutions across Africa. This will enable institutions to progressively transform their banking platform and evolve to more customer-centric business models. The service will initially support key African markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and others.
The recent regulatory visit to the Apex Bank in Nigeria, hosted at the CBN headquarters in Abuja, was led by Mitchell Elegbe, Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Interswitch, and Santhosh Rao, Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Temenos. The engagement forms part of ongoing efforts by both organizations to deepen collaboration with Central Banks across the African region on the future of digital banking infrastructure across Nigeria and key African markets.
Discussions centred on the strategic partnership between Interswitch and Temenos, and how it will enable Nigerian financial institutions to progressively modernize their core banking platforms and transition to more customer-centric business models. The two organizations also explored opportunities to work with the CBN in charting new frontiers in Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) innovation, leveraging resilient financial networks and decentralized application platforms to support the issuance and management of CBDCs.
Commenting on the visit, Mitchell Elegbe, Founder and Group CEO of Interswitch, said:
“Our partnership as Interswitch with Temenos and our continued engagement with the Central Bank of Nigeria reflect a shared commitment to building banking infrastructure that is resilient, inclusive, and ready for the next phase of Africa’s financial evolution. We are proud to be at the table as these conversations shape the future of digital banking technology and innovation across key Africa markets…”
The strategic visit essentially underscores Interswitch and Temenos’ shared commitment to supporting regulatory bodies and financial institutions across Africa as they navigate the evolving digital finance landscape, and reaffirms both organizations’ long-standing collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).