LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Barely one week after the Federal Government introduced deduction of 0.375 per cent stamp duty charge on all mortgaged-backed loans, the Cardoso-led CBN team, has mandated all banks to commence 0.5 per cent charge of cybersecurity levy on transactions.
This, was seen in a circular circulated by the apex bank on Monday.
The circular explains that the execution of the stated fee should begin within two weeks from the date of announcement.
Monday’s circular revealed that it was a follow-up on to an earlier one and letter dated June 25, 2018 (Ref: BPS/DIR/GEN/CIR/05/008) and October 5, 2018 (Ref: BSD/DIR/GEN/LAB/11/023) respectively on compliance with the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act 2015.
All banking institutions, mobile money operators, payment service providers amongst others were listed in the circular released by the apex bank.
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The CBN circular reads: “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.’
“Deductions shall commence within two weeks from the date of this circular for all financial institutions and the monthly remittance of the levies collected in bulk to the NCF account domiciled at the CBN by the fifth business day of every subsequent month.”
Exempted from the levy include, 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.
However, the last few weeks has witnessed a thorough cracked down on the financial sector by the CBN. The sanitisation according to CBN, is to bolster transparency and stabilise the Naira amidst the recent declining state.
Recall the apex bank has ordered all fintech companies to stop onboarding new customers, and also to warned customers to stop using their platforms to trade cryptocurrency.