The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has mandated a response time of less than 30 minutes for commercial banks to address electronic fraud complaints, as new data reveals a sharp 51 per cent drop in e-fraud losses across the financial sector.

This policy shift, announced amid declining cyber threats, aims to bolster consumer protection and accelerate resolutions in Nigeria’s burgeoning digital banking landscape.

The amount of funds lost to fraud declined significantly in 2025, dropping by 51 per cent when compared to losses recorded in 2024...TAP TO CONTINUE FULL READING.

The apex bank said it would begin ensuring compliance with ISO 20022 as part of measures to curb fraud within the financial sector.

Data released by the managing director of the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), Premier Oiwoh, at the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) Technical Kick-off Session in Lagos revealed that the amount lost to fraud dropped by 51 per cent from N52.26 billion in 2024 to N25.85 billion last year.

The fraud count declined marginally by four per cent from 70,111 to 67,518, with the highest fraud count coming from Lagos.

The data showed that Lagos accounted for 63.43 per cent of the total fraud volume, with Abuja taking a distant second, accounting for just 3.12 per cent of fraud perpetrated in the country.

Speaking at the session, CBN deputy governor, Financial System Stability, Philip Ikeazor, who was represented by the director, Development and Finance Institutions Supervision, Ibrahim Umar Hassan, stressed the importance of Nigeria’s ongoing migration to ISO 20022 in strengthening fraud detection and response capabilities.

To this end, Ikeazor said the industry had reached a consensus on faster intervention, noting that “the industry has agreed to reduce fraud response time to under 30 minutes, a decisive step that materially improves recovery outcomes and limits systemic exposure.” According to him, delays in responding to fraud incidents often worsen losses and weaken public confidence in electronic payment channels.

He explained that while Nigeria has made significant progress in securing its payments infrastructure, fraud risks have evolved with increasing digitisation.

“While legacy fraud such as ATM card cloning has been effectively neutralised, newer risks — online fraud, social engineering, SIM-swap abuse, insider compromise, and authorised push payment scams — have emerged,” he said.

To address these challenges, the CBN is placing strong emphasis on the adoption of ISO 20022, describing it as a critical anti-fraud tool rather than a mere regulatory compliance exercise. Ikeazor stated that the new messaging standard offers richer and more structured transaction data that will enhance traceability, analytics and early fraud detection across the financial system.

“Beyond compliance, ISO 20022 provides richer, structured transaction data that enhances traceability, analytics and early fraud detection,” he said, adding that improved data quality would enable “faster investigation, better pattern recognition and more effective cross-border cooperation.”

On her part, the CBN director, Payment System Supervision, and chairman of NeFF, Dr Rakiya Yusuf, noted that the apex bank would soon commence inspection of banks to ensure compliance with ISO 20022, which, according to her, would help in the reduction of fraud within the system alongside improved use of electronic channels.

She also urged banks to ensure strict compliance with know your customer (KYC), know your business (KYB) and customer due diligence (CDD), saying there would be monitoring to ensure full compliance.

According to her, there is no such policy as KYC zero.

“We have KYC 1, 2 and 3, with different thresholds. There is no KYC called KYC zero, where there is no identity at all. The central bank has not come up with a policy on any category called KYC four. So if you have that in your books, it will be very expedient that you address them,” she said, adding that officials would be sent to examine the books of financial institutions to ensure compliance.

Meanwhile, the NIBSS managing director, Oiwoh, noted that digital payments fraud in Nigeria had grown in scale, speed and sophistication, driven largely by increased adoption of instant and remote banking channels.

To this end, he said NIBSS had taken strategic steps towards curbing the volume and value of fraud losses in the country.

According to him, aside from promoting fraud intelligence sharing by financial institutions, a portal for persons of interest — containing data on every individual involved in fraud in the country since 2019 to date — had been made effective, ensuring that fraud perpetrators would have no hiding place in the Nigerian financial system.