Nigeria’s SEC Adds Yellow Card, Blockchain.com and YDPay Parent to Crypto Sandbox
Nigeria’s cryptocurrency regulatory landscape is expanding again, with the Securities and Exchange Commission admitting three additional virtual asset companies into its controlled regulatory programme.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria (SEC) has cleared Yellow Card (YC) Financial Limited, BC Access (Nigeria) Limited and Pisi Payments Solution Limited for admission into its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP).
In an official statement announcing the new admissions, the SEC said each company will receive Approval-in-Principle (AIP) status, allowing it to operate within the defined limits of the programme while remaining subject to regulatory, operational and supervisory conditions.
BC Access (Nigeria) Limited is the Nigerian operating entity used by Blockchain.com. Yellow Card, meanwhile, has evolved from a retail crypto exchange into a stablecoin infrastructure provider serving businesses and financial institutions.
The additions represent another important step in Nigeria’s attempt to move cryptocurrency businesses from a largely informal market into a supervised regulatory environment.
Approval-in-Principle is not the same as receiving a full Nigerian crypto licence.
The SEC explicitly warns that admission into ARIP remains conditional and can ultimately lead toward full registration only if companies continue satisfying the regulator’s requirements.
What Exactly Has Nigeria’s SEC Approved?
The SEC announced three companies:
Pisi Payments Solution Limited
BC Access (Nigeria) Limited
Yellow Card (YC) Financial Limited
According to the regulator, all three have met the initial requirements necessary to enter ARIP.
They will now be permitted to operate within the programme’s approved parameters while the SEC observes their businesses, compliance systems and technologies.
The regulator describes an Approval-in-Principle as confirmation that a company has satisfied the requirements for admission into the programme.
But the SEC is equally clear that the approval is not a final licence.
What Is Nigeria’s ARIP Crypto Sandbox?
ARIP stands for Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme.
Think of it as a controlled environment between being completely unregulated and receiving full regulatory registration.
The SEC says its ARIP programme is designed to fast-track Virtual Asset Service Providers and other digital investment companies into a specialised sandbox where their businesses can be evaluated.
Instead of simply issuing a permanent licence and hoping everything works as expected, regulators can observe how the company operates.
They can examine issues such as:
- how customers are identified;
- how customer funds and digital assets are protected;
- how transactions are monitored;
- how suspicious activity is handled;
- how cybersecurity risks are managed;
- how complaints are resolved;
- how the company’s technology operates;
- whether advertising is appropriate; and
- whether the company’s actual business matches what it told regulators.
The SEC says the objective is to ensure that appropriate safeguards exist before products and services are offered more broadly to investors.
ARIP therefore functions as both a regulatory test and a pathway toward deeper authorisation.
Blockchain.com Is Entering Through BC Access Nigeria
Perhaps the most recognisable international company in the latest group is Blockchain.com.
The entity formally listed by the Nigerian SEC is BC Access (Nigeria) Limited.
Blockchain.com’s own current User Agreement confirms that BC Access (Nigeria) Limited is the operating entity for Nigerian residents using its services.
Its privacy policy also identifies BC Access (Nigeria) Limited as its Nigerian entity and lists it as a locally registered company based in Lagos.
This distinction is useful because regulatory announcements will often list the legal company name rather than the consumer-facing brand.
A Nigerian user may therefore recognise Blockchain.com, while the SEC sees BC Access (Nigeria) Limited.
Blockchain.com has already been offering some services specifically to Nigerian customers through the entity. For example, its Nigerian promotional terms have previously identified BC Access Nigeria as the company behind Blockchain.com activities offered to verified Nigerian users.
The new ARIP status takes that local presence further by placing the entity directly within the SEC’s regulatory incubation framework.
Yellow Card Is Also Joining ARIP
Yellow Card is another notable addition.
The company began its African journey primarily as a consumer-focused cryptocurrency platform but has since shifted heavily toward business-to-business stablecoin infrastructure.
Its current products are designed to help banks, fintechs and other businesses move between local currencies, dollars and stablecoins across multiple markets.
Earlier in August, Yellow Card announced a $40 million strategic equity round involving investors including SC Ventures by Standard Chartered, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital. The funding is intended partly to expand its stablecoin and dollar-payment infrastructure.
Its admission to Nigeria’s regulatory programme is particularly notable because Nigeria was an important market in Yellow Card’s early growth.
The company launched commercially in Nigeria before expanding across multiple African countries and eventually shifting away from its retail exchange model.
For Yellow Card’s current infrastructure-focused strategy, regulatory approvals could become increasingly important.
Banks and larger companies are generally much less willing than ordinary retail users to connect their systems to an unregulated crypto provider.
Being able to demonstrate active regulatory engagement can therefore become part of Yellow Card’s business proposition.
Yellow Card Has Previously Argued That Sandboxes Matter
Interestingly, Yellow Card itself has previously argued that regulatory sandboxes can play an important role in bringing digital assets into mainstream financial infrastructure.
In a February 2026 analysis titled “From Sandbox to Scale”, the company argued that regulatory pilots can help governments understand emerging technologies while allowing companies to prove that their infrastructure can meet regulatory requirements.
Yellow Card also argued that companies participating in such programmes can be better positioned when temporary regulatory pilots eventually transition into full regulatory frameworks.
Nigeria’s ARIP admission now puts Yellow Card itself into exactly that kind of process.
Pisi Payments Brings a Local Fintech Into the Programme
The third company is Pisi Payments Solution Limited.
Unlike Blockchain.com and Yellow Card, the Pisi name may not immediately be familiar to many cryptocurrency users.
Pisi Payments is the parent company of YDPay Africa, a Nigerian fintech associated with digital payments and virtual assets.
Its inclusion demonstrates that the latest ARIP expansion is not limited to major international crypto companies.
Nigeria is also creating pathways for domestic companies building services around digital assets and payments.
That could be particularly important if the country’s long-term objective is to create a locally regulated crypto ecosystem instead of simply allowing Nigerians to rely on foreign exchanges.
This Is Not Nigeria’s First Crypto Sandbox Cohort
Yellow Card, Blockchain.com and Pisi Payments are joining a programme that already includes other Nigerian digital-asset companies.
Two of the most notable early participants are Busha and Quidax.
In August 2024, the SEC granted Busha Digital Limited and Quidax Technologies Limited Approval-in-Principle under ARIP as digital asset exchanges.
The SEC described those approvals as a step preceding full registration rather than permanent licences.
The regulator’s current register of FinTech operators continues to identify Busha and Quidax among ARIP participants.
Other companies have participated through related incubation programmes involving areas such as tokenisation, custody and digital asset offerings.
Approval-in-Principle Does Not Mean Full Licensing
This is probably the most important part of the announcement for users to understand.
An Approval-in-Principle sounds very similar to a licence, but they should not be treated as interchangeable.
The Nigerian SEC explicitly says:
An AIP confirms that a company has satisfied the requirements for entering ARIP.
It allows the company to operate within the defined scope of the programme.
But it remains conditional on continued compliance with the SEC’s requirements.
Companies can still face regulatory reviews, reporting obligations and other conditions before moving toward full registration.
When Busha and Quidax received their earlier approvals, the SEC similarly described AIP status as a precursor to full registration.
This means consumers should be careful when they see advertisements or social-media posts describing companies as simply “SEC licensed.”
The exact regulatory status matters.
Why Is Nigeria Using a Sandbox Instead of Immediately Issuing Licences?
Cryptocurrency businesses can be difficult to regulate because two companies described as “crypto platforms” may actually perform completely different functions.
One might run an exchange.
Another could provide custody.
Another might move stablecoins between businesses.
Another could tokenise real estate.
Another may offer only software while never holding customer money.
Applying exactly the same regulatory requirements to all of them can create problems.
A regulatory sandbox gives the SEC an opportunity to understand how the businesses actually work before determining which controls are necessary.
When Busha and Quidax entered ARIP in 2024, the regulator said testing would occur on a short-term and small-scale basis, with outcomes helping inform future policy development.
That approach effectively allows regulation and technology to develop alongside each other.
Regulation Does Not Mean Nigeria Has Become Unconditionally Crypto-Friendly
Nigeria’s approach remains complicated.
The same government that is creating pathways for regulated crypto firms has also taken aggressive action against parts of the industry.
Nigeria’s relationship with Binance is the clearest example.
Authorities launched investigations and legal proceedings against the exchange following disputes over naira trading, taxation and other issues. In 2025, Nigeria sought billions of dollars in alleged economic losses and back taxes from Binance, claims the company contested.
Nigeria has also introduced new tax obligations for cryptocurrency activity.
More recently, industry representatives warned that some of the country’s 2026 crypto-tax measures could push trading away from regulated platforms if compliance costs become too high.
The overall policy therefore looks less like:
“Nigeria is embracing crypto.”
And more like:
“Nigeria is willing to allow crypto, but increasingly wants it operating under Nigerian rules.”
The expansion of ARIP fits squarely within that strategy.
It Could Also Make Banking Relationships Easier
One of the biggest obstacles crypto companies have traditionally faced is accessing conventional banking infrastructure.
Banks have compliance obligations of their own.
Working with a cryptocurrency business that has no clear regulatory status can therefore expose a bank to additional legal and financial risks.
Bringing crypto companies into SEC supervision potentially gives banks, payment companies and institutional partners greater clarity about who they are dealing with.
This could be especially important for Yellow Card’s stablecoin infrastructure strategy.
The company increasingly wants to connect financial institutions and businesses to blockchain-based settlement infrastructure.
Its latest $40 million funding round is partly aimed at expanding those connections.
Regulatory progress in major African markets such as Nigeria could therefore be commercially important, not simply a compliance exercise.
