The Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday directed all banks to commence charging a 0.5 per cent cybersecurity levy on all electronic transactions within the country.
This was said by the apex bank in a circular that was signed by Haruna Mustafa, the director of financial policy and regulation, and Chibuzo Efobi, the director of payments system management department.
The circular stated that the levy would go into effect two weeks from Monday, May 6, 2024, and was addressed to all commercial, merchant, non-interest, and payment service banks, among other banks.
“The levy shall be applied at the point of electronic transfer origination, then deducted and remitted by the financial institution. The deducted amount shall be reflected in the customer’s account with the narration, ‘Cybersecurity Levy,’” the circular partly read.
The entire set of 16 banking transactions free from the new cybersecurity levy imposed by the CBN:
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- 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
- Other Financial Institutions instructions to their correspondent banks
- Interbank placements,
- Banks’ transfers to CBN and vice-versa
- Inter-branch transfers within a bank
- Cheque clearing and settlements
- Letters of Credits
- Banks’ recapitalisation-related funding – only bulk funds movement from collection accounts
- Savings and deposits, including transactions involving long-term investments such as Treasury Bills, Bonds, and Commercial Papers.
- Government Social Welfare Programmes transactions e.g. Pension payments
- Non-profit and charitable transactions, including donations to registered non-profit organisations or charities
- Educational institutions’ transactions, including tuition payments and other transactions involving schools, universities, or other educational institutions
- Transactions involving bank’s internal accounts such as suspense accounts, clearing accounts, profit and loss accounts, inter-branch accounts, reserve accounts, nostro and vostro accounts, and escrow accounts.
