By Adedapo Adesanya

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed banks to complete a mandatory cybersecurity self-assessment within three weeks.

In a letter dated March 30, 2026, and published on its website on Tuesday, the apex bank said, “Institutions are required to submit their completed CSAT within the following timelines: i. Three (3) weeks – Deposit Money Banks (DMBs); ii. Five (5) weeks – All other regulated institutions.”

The directive, addressed to banks, selected other financial institutions, and payment service providers, introduced a Cybersecurity Self-Assessment Tool to evaluate the cyber risk exposure of regulated entities.

The CBN stated that the move was in line with its statutory mandate under the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 2020 and its broader commitment to improving cybersecurity standards in the sector.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria, in furtherance of its statutory mandate under the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020 and consistent with its commitment to strengthening cybersecurity resilience across the financial sector, hereby notifies all Deposit Money Banks, Payment Service Banks, Microfinance Banks, Payment Service Providers, Finance Companies, and Development Finance Institutions of the deployment of its Cybersecurity Self-Assessment Tool,” the letter read.

The apex bank explained that the CSAT is designed as a supervisory instrument to provide a comprehensive view of financial institutions’ cybersecurity posture.

It explained that the tool would assess critical areas, including governance structures, risk management frameworks, technology systems, third-party risk exposure, incident response capacity, and overall operational resilience.

“The CSAT is a structured supervisory instrument designed to obtain comprehensive information on the cybersecurity posture of regulated institutions,” the CBN said.

The bank added that insights generated from the exercise would support risk-based supervision and enhance regulatory oversight of cybersecurity threats within Nigeria’s financial ecosystem.

Earlier in December 2025, banks in Nigeria were urged to strengthen their cybersecurity systems as rising digital fraud continued to erode customer trust and slow the growth of the country’s digital banking sector.

In the latest update, the CBN told banks to ensure compliance, adding that all affected institutions must complete and submit the assessment through a dedicated portal, with access credentials to be communicated to their Chief Information Security Officers and other relevant officials.

“All submissions must be fully completed and accompanied by relevant supporting documentation, where applicable,” it stated, noting that the data to be provided must reflect institutions’ positions as of December 31, 2025.

The CBN also issued a warning against false or incomplete disclosures, stressing that accuracy and transparency would be strictly enforced.

“Supervised institutions are reminded that all information submitted to the CBN must be accurate, complete, and verifiable. Submission of false, misleading, or inaccurate information constitutes a regulatory breach and will attract appropriate sanctions,” the letter added.

It also disclosed plans to validate submissions through off-site reviews and supervisory engagements to confirm the data’s reliability.

The directive, which takes immediate effect, signals tighter regulatory scrutiny of cyber risks in the banking sector amid rising digital transactions and increasing exposure to cyber threats.

Nigeria’s relationship with digital banking has changed almost beyond recognition in a decade. Where cash once dominated every transaction, from the roadside market to the corporate boardroom, mobile apps, instant transfers, and USSD codes have reshaped how tens of millions of Nigerians interact with their money every single day. The figures speak for themselves: point-of-sale transactions surged to a record N18 trillion in 2024, a 69 per cent increase from the year before, and the number of POS terminals in operation more than doubled to 5.5 million. Mobile banking is now the most widely used digital financial service in the country, with four in five users having accessed it within any given 90-day window.

This is, by any honest measure, an extraordinary story of financial inclusion and technological adoption. But it is an incomplete story if told without its other half.

Behind the growth curves and transaction volumes, a quieter and more troubling story has been unfolding. According to the 2024 Nigeria Consumer Protection Survey published by Innovations for Poverty Action, nearly one in four digital financial services users reported experiencing unexpected fees, charges or fraud attempts in the past year. Of those who encountered a problem, only half sought any form of formal redress. That silence is not apathy. It is the sound of eroded confidence: customers who have concluded that raising a complaint is unlikely to produce results.

The fraud data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System tells the same story from a different angle. Actual losses to digital payment fraud rose to N52.26 billion in 2024, a figure inflated significantly by a single N31.1 billion incident involving one institution but still representing a 196 per cent increase in fraud losses over five years, even as the number of individual cases declined. The decline in case counts is not reassuring enough. It suggests that while fraudsters are making fewer attempts, they are making each one count considerably more.

By channel, e-commerce and internet banking remain the most exposed, followed by point-of-sale, mobile and web platforms. The most common technique is social engineering, which requires no sophisticated technology at all. It requires only a convincing conversation and a customer who does not know what to guard against. Insider abuse, where bank staff are complicit in fraud, is identified by NIBSS as the single greatest structural threat to the sector. That is a sobering finding, and one that no institution should read past quickly.

What this data collectively points to is a gap that the industry must confront honestly. Nigeria’s digital banking infrastructure has expanded at speed. The consumer protection architecture that should travel alongside it has not always kept pace. Convenience and safety are not natural enemies, but they require deliberate and sustained design to coexist. Left to grow at different speeds, they create precisely the conditions that fraudsters, rogue actors and complacent institutions exploit.

The encouraging news is that the gap is closing. Nigeria exited the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list in 2025, a signal that the country’s financial system has materially strengthened its safeguards. The CBN’s 2024 rollout of risk-based cybersecurity frameworks for deposit money banks formalised the standard of care that institutions are required to demonstrate. Regulatory enforcement actions in 2024, including reported industry penalties totalling over N15 billion, have underscored that consumer protection is a compliance obligation with real and immediate consequences. The industry is being held to a higher standard, and that is the right direction.

Within institutions themselves, the most effective safeguards are often the ones customers never see. The strongest security infrastructure operates silently in the background: monitoring account behaviour in real time, identifying anomalies before they become losses and intervening before a suspicious transaction completes rather than after. This is not glamorous work, but it is the work that matters most. A customer who never has to report a fraud incident has been protected more effectively than one who was offered a sympathetic apology after the damage was done.

Union Bank’s experience illustrates what this balance looks like in practice. Across its digital channels, including UnionMobile, the USSD platform (*826#) and the Union360 business banking suite, the bank’s full-year 2025 customer experience data reflects consistently strong satisfaction and loyalty scores. These are not outcomes that emerge from convenience alone. They reflect what customers value above all else when they transact digitally: the confidence that the experience will be safe, seamless and complete. That quality of outcome does not happen by accident. It is the product of sustained investment in backend security infrastructure that operates largely out of sight, proactive monitoring systems that identify and intercept anomalies before they become losses, and an institutional culture that treats customer protection as a core organisational value rather than a compliance line item. It is a culture Union Bank articulates through its ICARE values, where the commitment to being customer and community-focused is not a policy position but a founding principle, reinforced consistently from the moment any member of staff joins the bank.

In March, as institutions across Nigeria marked World Consumer Rights Day, Union Bank reaffirmed to its staff the responsibility that every individual within the organisation carries to uphold the rights and dignity of the customers it serves. It is the kind of internal commitment that rarely makes headlines, but it ultimately determines the quality of every customer interaction that does.

Trust is the only currency in banking that cannot be manufactured on demand. It is built over time, through consistent behaviour, through systems that protect customers before they know they need protecting, and through institutions willing to be accountable when they fall short. Nigeria’s digital banking revolution has done extraordinary things for financial access and economic participation. Its next chapter must be defined by what it does for financial safety. The two are not in competition. In the long run, they are, in every meaningful sense, the same thing.

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

One of the leading financial services firms, Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) Plc, has declared a record dividend of N12.75 for the 2025 financial year, reaffirming its unrivalled capacity to create value for shareholders.

The chief executive of the GTCO, Mr Segun Agbaje, said, “Our record dividend payout this year is not only a reflection of our current profitability but also of our confidence in the group’s long-term earnings potential.”

In the year, the company, according to its financial statements released to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on Tuesday, reported profit before tax of N1.23 trillion, underpinned by strong growth in core earnings, with interest income and fee income increasing y-o-y by 23.2 per cent and 25.9 per cent, respectively.

The performance reaffirms its capacity to generate sustainable earnings and builds on the momentum from 2024, when GTCO delivered a record profit of ₦1.27 trillion, driven in part by N517.5 billion in fair value gains, which did not recur in 2025.

Also, the post-tax profit shrank to N865.75 billion from N1.02 trillion due to recent fiscal policy adjustments to the taxation of investment securities, notably withholding tax on short-term instruments.

However, when normalised for this effect, underlying earnings remain robust, driven by growth in core operating income.

The organisation continues to maintain a well-structured, healthy, and diversified balance sheet in all the jurisdictions wherein it operates a banking franchise, as well as across its Payments, Pension and Funds Management business verticals.

In the year under review, total assets and shareholders’ funds closed at N17.8 trillion and N3.4 trillion, respectively, as Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) remained very robust and strong, closing at 43.8 per cent, likewise asset quality improved as evidenced by IFRS 9 Stage 3 Loans which closed at 3.4 per cent and 5.0 per cent at Bank and Group level in FY-2025 (Bank, 3.5 per cent, and Group, 5.2 per cent in December 2024).

In addition, Cost of Risk (COR) also improved to 2.2 per cent from 4.9 per cent in December 2024. In specific terms, the net loan book grew by 12.4 per cent from N2.79 trillion as of December 2024 to N3.13 trillion in December 2025.

Similarly, deposit liabilities grew by 23.8 per cent from N10.40 trillion to N12.87 trillion during the same period.

“Our 2025 result underscores the resilience and depth of our earnings capacity.  Following a record 2024, which included significant fair value gains, our focus has been on strengthening the sustainability of our earnings by driving growth across our core banking and ecosystem businesses,” Mr Agbaje stated.

“The strength of our underlying earnings, despite a stronger Naira and tighter regulatory parameters, reflects the quality of our franchise and the discipline with which we execute our strategy.

“Importantly, this strong core earnings performance underpins our capacity to sustain and grow shareholder returns,” he added.

“Looking ahead, we remain focused on scaling our ecosystem, driving innovation across our financial services platform, and delivering consistent, high-quality earnings that support superior value creation for our shareholders,” he noted.