The Central Bank of Nigeria issued a directive on Monday, instructing all banks to implement a 0.5 per cent cybersecurity levy on all electronic transactions within the country.
The circular, signed by Chibuzo Efobi and Haruna Mustafa, Directors of the Payments System Management Department and Financial Policy and Regulation Department respectively, was obtained by Saving Point Media.
The levy, as outlined in the circular, will be applied two weeks from Monday, May 6, 2024.
It will be charged at the point of electronic transfer origination, then deducted and remitted by the financial institution.
The deducted amount will be reflected in the customer’s account with the narration, ‘Cybersecurity Levy.’
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However, certain banking transactions are exempted from this levy. Here’s a breakdown of the 16 exempted transactions:
- 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.
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