Leading international compliance and cybersecurity technology company with deep roots across Africa, Smartcomply, has disclosed that its Adhere platform, an AI-powered AML compliance and fraud detection solution, is aligned with the Baseline Standards for Automated Anti-Money Laundering Solutions issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, on March 10, 2026.

The CBN directive was contained in a circular titled: ‘Issuance of Baseline Standards for Automated Anti-Money Laundering, AML, Solution for Financial Institutions in Nigeria’.

The circular, signed by Akinwunmi Olubukola, Director of the Banking Supervision Department, and Olubunmi Ayodele-Oni for the Director of the Compliance Department, applies to banks, mobile money operators, international money transfer operators, payment service providers and other regulated financial institutions.

According to the apex bank, the standards were designed to strengthen the country’s financial crime detection framework as financial services become increasingly digital.

To that end, Chief Executive Officer of Smartcomply, Gbemisola Osunrinde, said: “Adhere was built to solve exactly the challenge the CBN is now mandating every financial institution to address. Our platform covers transaction monitoring, automated KYC and CDD, sanctions and PEP screening, risk assessment, case management, and regulatory reporting, all purpose-built for the African regulatory environment and integrated with national identity infrastructure including BVN and NIN.”

The areas where Adhere meets the CBN’s baseline standards include AI-powered transaction monitoring with behavioural pattern recognition, anomaly detection and explainable alert generation; End-to-end automated KYC, CDD, and KYB processes integrated with BVN and NIN databases; Real-time sanctions, watchlist, and PEP screening with fuzzy matching and adverse media monitoring; Dynamic, risk-based customer profiling that adjusts in response to new data and behavioural changes; Enterprise case management with role-based workflows, maker-checker controls, and complete audit trails; Automated regulatory reporting in CBN-prescribed formats, including STRs, SARs, CTRs, and FTRs, among others.

Osunrinde added: “Compliance teams across Nigeria are right now evaluating how to meet these new requirements. The institutions that will move fastest are the ones that choose a platform purpose-built for African regulatory standards, one that can be customised to their specific risk profiles and operational workflows, rather than trying to retrofit a system that was designed for a different market.”