The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) says bank losses linked to electronic payment fraud reduced in 2025 but warned of emerging risk trends.
According to NAN, officials of the NIBSS and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) spoke on Wednesday at the 2026 Nigeria electronic fraud forum (NeFF) technical kick-off session in Lagos.
Regulators, banks, payment service providers, identity agencies, and law enforcement bodies reportedly attended the event.
Premier Oiwoh, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of NIBSS, said electronic payment fraud losses declined significantly in 2025 due to coordinated actions by regulators, security agencies and industry operators.
“The reduction in electronic payment fraud losses was recorded despite rising transaction volumes,” Oiwoh said.
“We can only attribute this improvement to interventions by CBN, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), security agencies and enhanced monitoring across the payments ecosystem.”
Oiwoh, however, said internet banking and e-commerce remain the primary fraud channels, with social engineering and insider-assisted fraud emerging as dominant trends.
The NIBSS chief said the gains could only be sustained through stricter controls, stronger regulatory compliance and industry-wide collaboration.
He stressed zero tolerance for non-reporting of fraud, warning that weak reporting practices, poor identity verification and abuse of transaction limits continue to expose the system to risks.
The director-general said effective know-your-customer (KYC) and know-your-device (KYD) processes, supported by real-time validation of NIN and BVN, are critical to curbing fraud.
He added that stronger reporting requirements, joint industry action and a central “persons of interest” database — covering more than 13,000 individuals — have improved detection and prevention.
The CEO disclosed that the NIBSS is working with the CBN and other stakeholders on advanced AI-driven monitoring tools and a new national payment infrastructure to further strengthen fraud prevention and deepen financial inclusion.
On his part, Philip Ikeazor, deputy governor for financial system stability at the CBN, said sustained collaboration under the NeFF framework since 2011 has strengthened the resilience and security of Nigeria’s payments system.
Represented by Ibrahim Hassan, director of the development finance institutions supervision department, Ikeazor said the cooperation had helped to reduce fraud losses despite the rapid growth in digital transactions.
He highlighted key industry milestones, including the migration to EMV chip-and-PIN cards, two-factor authentication, enhanced transaction monitoring, centralised fraud reporting, and the integration of the bank verification number (BVN) with the national identification number (NIN).
“Emerging threats such as social engineering, SIM-swap abuse, insider compromise and Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams require faster, integrated and proactive responses,” the deputy governor said.
“The industry is committed to reducing fraud response times to under 30 minutes and to adopt enterprise-wide fraud management systems leveraging real-time analytics and shared intelligence.”
Rakiya Yusuf, director of the payments system supervision department at the CBN and chairman of NeFF, called for sustained coordinated action among regulators, banks, payment providers and law enforcement agencies.
Yusuf, who highlighted progress in areas such as EMV chip-and-PIN migration, two-factor authentication and improved identity management, warned that emerging threats require standardised frameworks, faster response times and proactive use of ISO 20022 and analytics to sustain fraud reduction.
She expressed confidence that deliberations at the forum would strengthen the foundation for a safer and more trusted digital financial ecosystem in Nigeria.
NAN
