The Central Bank of Nigeria has ordered financial institutions to implement a 0.5% cybersecurity levy on transactions.
A circular from the apex bank dated Monday, May 6, 2024, disclosed that the deduction would start two weeks from today.
The directive is for all types of banks – commercial, merchant, non-interest, and payment service banks.
It applies to other financial institutions, mobile money operators, and payment service providers.
The CBN also explained that the directive is a follow-up to an earlier directive issued on June 25, 2018 (Ref: BPS/DIR/GEN/CIR/05/008) and October 5, 2018 (Ref: BSD/DIR/GEN/LAB/11/023), respectively, on compliance with the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act 2015, but has not been fully implemented Punch reports.
CBN circular reads:
However, it is important to note that not all transactions will incur debits. Exempted transactions encompass 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, and transfers between banks and the CBN and vice versa.
The federal government is desperate to boost its non-oil revenue.
A new directive was recently issued to Deposit Money Banks to immediately begin deducting the 0.375% stamp duty charge on all mortgaged-backed loans and bonds.
TimesNow.com.ng earlier reported that the CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, revealed that over N10 trillion has been loaned to customers under various intervention schemes.
CBN data showed that between September and October 2022, the apex bank disbursed about N41.02 billion to several agricultural projects under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).
The total disbursement under the ABP scheme amounts to N1.07 trillion, which is distributed to about 4.6 million smallholder farmers growing 21 commodities nationwide.
Source: TimesNow.com.ng
