Digital Financial Reporting in Nigeria: Evolution, Challenges and Prospects for Corporate Transparency

This paper examines the evolution, challenges and prospects of digital financial reporting (DFR) for corporate transparency in Nigeria. It adopts an evidence-led conceptual and policy approach based on scholarly literature, Nigerian regulatory developments and international financial reporting standards. The findings show that Nigeria has progressed from conventional reporting through IFRS-driven standardisation and internet financial reporting towards increasingly digital reporting infrastructure. However, internet financial reporting remains distinct from structured DFR, which presents financial information in machine-readable formats for efficient extraction, comparison and analysis. Five major challenges are identified: fragmented reporting and limited standardisation; technological and infrastructure constraints; cybersecurity and data-integrity risks; regulatory and institutional coordination; and limitations in digital skills, costs and organisational readiness. Recent developments, including the Financial Reporting Council's National Repository Portal and digital sustainability reporting initiatives, indicate further prospects for digitalisation. The paper argues that DFR can strengthen corporate transparency through improved accessibility, timeliness, comparability and analytical usability of financial information. However, digital availability alone does not guarantee transparency; its benefits depend on information quality, reliability, structure and usability, supported by interoperable systems, appropriate standards, regulatory coordination, cybersecurity and professional capacity. The paper concludes that Nigeria should pursue DFR as an integrated reporting ecosystem rather than technology adoption for its own sake.