Nigeria’s financial regulators are moving to treat digital fraud as a systemic threat, not just a banking nuisance, as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) launches an industry-wide push to slash fraud response times to under 30 minutes.
The initiative was unveiled by the Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Mr. Philip Ikeazor, at the 2026 Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) Technical Kick-Off Session in Lagos, where regulators, banks, fintechs, payment service providers, telecom operators and law enforcement agencies met to chart a new course for fraud mitigation.
Represented by the Director, Development and Finance Institutions Supervision, Ibrahim Umar Hassan, Ikeazor said the CBN, working through NeFF, is driving a decisive shift from reactive controls to predictive, real-time and enterprise-wide fraud management systems across the financial industry, against the backdrop of sharply rising electronic fraud losses.
“Fraud is no longer merely an operational issue; it is a financial stability concern. Unchecked fraud undermines trust in digital finance, threatens financial inclusion gains and poses systemic risks to the economy,” he said.
Ikeazor disclosed that the industry has now agreed on concrete, measurable actions, including reducing fraud response times to under 30 minutes — a move expected to significantly improve recovery outcomes and limit systemic exposure.
According to him, NeFF has over the years played a critical role in strengthening the resilience of Nigeria’s payments system, pointing to landmark interventions such as the migration to EMV chip-and-PIN cards, which virtually eliminated ATM card cloning, and the introduction of mandatory two-factor authentication for electronic banking.
“These coordinated interventions helped reverse systemic vulnerabilities and led to significant reductions in e-fraud losses between 2014 and 2017, even as electronic transaction volumes expanded rapidly,” Ikeazor said.
He noted, however, that as legacy fraud schemes were contained, new and more sophisticated threats — including social engineering, SIM-swap fraud, insider compromise and authorised push payment (APP) scams — have emerged, demanding faster, stronger and more coordinated responses across the ecosystem.
As part of the renewed anti-fraud drive, Ikeazor said the CBN is placing strong emphasis on Nigeria’s progress in identity management, particularly the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and its integration with the National Identification Number (NIN), which he said has significantly constrained impersonation and synthetic identity fraud.
He also identified the industry’s migration to ISO 20022 as a major game-changer, explaining that the global messaging standard provides richer and more structured transaction data capable of enhancing traceability, analytics and early fraud detection.
“Beyond compliance, ISO 20022 gives us the data depth required for faster investigations, better pattern recognition and more effective collaboration, including across borders,” he said.
Earlier, in her opening address, the Director of the Payments System Supervision Department of the CBN and Chairman of NeFF, Dr. Rakiya O. Yusuf, stressed that sustained collaboration among regulators, financial institutions, payment service providers, identity management agencies and law enforcement remains the foundation of Nigeria’s progress in combating electronic fraud.
She said the focus of the 2026 NeFF engagement is to convert improved infrastructure, shared analytics and stronger identity systems into measurable reductions in fraud losses, while safeguarding confidence in the payments system.
Looking ahead, Ikeazor said the CBN will drive the setting of bold fraud-reduction targets, strengthened accountability, deeper engagement with fintechs and telecom operators, and transparent performance measurement through industry scorecards.
“With clear targets, shared responsibility and sustained collaboration, 2026 must be remembered as the turning point when Nigeria decisively shrank fraud losses and secured the future of its digital financial ecosystem,” he said.
