Digital Public Infrastructure, Instant Payments and Financial Inclusion: Comparing Nigeria and Kenya with India and Brazil

This article compares digital public infrastructure (DPI), instant payment systems and financial inclusion outcomes in Nigeria and Kenya with those of India and Brazil. Using secondary data from the World Bank Global Findex 2025, Remittance Prices Worldwide, IMF assessments, NPCI, Banco Central do Brasil and peer-reviewed sources, it examines why Nigeria’s eNaira and expanding national identity system have not produced usage levels comparable to India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) or Brazil’s Pix, while Kenya achieved high account ownership through mobile money without a retail CBDC. Key findings show large gaps in adult account ownership (Kenya 90.1%, India 89.0%, Brazil 86.4%, Nigeria 63.3%), transaction scale, and remittance costs. The analysis concludes that interoperability, merchant incentives and government-to-person payment routing, rather than the mere launch of a central bank digital currency, drive inclusion at scale. Policy recommendations focus on bank–fintech–mobile-money interoperability, G2P routing, and cheaper formal remittance corridors for Nigeria and other African economies.