Effective from 20th of May, 2024, all electronic bank transactions within the country will attract 0.5 percent cybersecurity levy.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) gave the directive on Monday in a circular signed by the Director, Payments System Management Department, Chibuzo Efobi; and the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department, Haruna Mustafa.
The circular was directed to all commercial, merchant, non-interest, and payment service banks, among others.
It indicated that the implementation of the levy would start two weeks from Monday, May 6, 2024.
“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 stated.
The circular exempted some transactions from cybercrime levy.
The exemptions included 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, and Other Financial Institutions (OFIs) instructions to their correspondent banks.
The exemption also applies to interbank placements, banks’ transfers to CBN and vice versa, inter-branch transfers within a bank, cheque clearing and settlements, and Letters of Credit (LCs).
Others include 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 transaction involving schools, universities, or other educational institutions.
Transactions involving the 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, are also exempt from the levy.
The central bank warned that Section 44 (8) of the Act prescribes that failure to remit the levy constitutes an offence punishable on conviction by a fine of not less than two percent of the defaulting business’s annual turnover, among other things.
