Banks operating in the country are to start charging a cybersecurity levy on transactions, according to a directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The apex bank said in a circular to all commercial, merchant, non-interest and payment service banks, among others on Monday that the implementation of the levy would start from May 20.
The circular revealed that it was a follow-up on an earlier letter dated June 25, 2018 on compliance with the Cybercrimes Act 2015.
“Following the enactment of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) (amendment) Act 2024 and under the provision of Section 44 (2)(a) of the Act, a levy of 0.5 per cent (0.005) equivalent to a half per cent of all electronic transactions value by the business specified in the Second Schedule of the Act, is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund which shall be administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser,” the circular read.
The CBN said that all banks, other financial institutions and payment service providers are now required to implement the directive, saying, “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’.
“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 include 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.
Also exempted from the levy were 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.
Others are 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; and 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.
