The Central Bank of Nigeria has ordered all banks operating in the country to start charging a cybersecurity levy on transactions.
A circular from the apex bank on Monday, May 6 informed implementation of the levy would start two weeks from today.
The circular was directed to all commercial, merchant, non-interest and payment service banks, among others.
The circular stated it was a follow-up on an earlier letter dated 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.
It said: “Deductions shall commence within two weeks from the date of this circular for all financial institutions and the monthly remittance of the levies collected in bulk to the NCF account domiciled at the CBN by the fifth business day of every subsequent month.”
Exempted from the levy are 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.
