The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has mandated all banks to levy a 0.5 per cent cybersecurity charge on electronic transactions within the country, with exceptions for 16 specified banking transactions.
In a circular jointly signed by Chibuzo Efobi, Director of the Payments System Management Department, and Haruna Mustafa, Director of the Financial Policy and Regulation Department, the CBN announced that the cybersecurity levy would take effect two weeks from May 6, 2024.
The directive applies to all commercial, merchant, non-interest, and payment service banks, among others, who are instructed to initiate the implementation of the cybersecurity charges within the stipulated timeframe.
The circular outlined that the levy would be applied at the point of electronic transfer origination, with the deducted amount to be remitted by the financial institution. The charge will be reflected in the customer’s account with the notation, ‘Cybersecurity Levy.’
However, the CBN provided a list of 16 banking transactions exempted from the cybersecurity levy, including:
- Loan disbursements and repayments
- Salary payments
- Intra-account transfers within the same bank or between different banks for the same customer
- Intra-bank transfers between customers of the same bank
- Instructions from Other Financial Institutions to their correspondent banks
- Interbank placements
- Transfers between banks and CBN
- Inter-branch transfers within a bank
- Cheque clearing and settlements
- Letters of Credits
- Banks’ recapitalisation-related funding (bulk funds movement from collection accounts only)
- Savings and deposits, including transactions involving long-term investments
- Government Social Welfare Programmes transactions (e.g., Pension payments)
- Non-profit and charitable transactions, including donations
- Educational institutions’ transactions, including tuition payments
- Transactions involving the bank’s internal accounts, such as suspense accounts and escrow accounts.
