By Elizabeth Adegbesan

THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has imposed a cyber security levy of 0.005 percent on service charge collected by payment service providers, PSPs, on electronic payment transactions.

Director Banking and Payments System Department, CBN, Mr. Dipo Fatokun, announced the levy in a circular issued yesterday saying the  levy is in compliance with the Cybercrime  Act 2015 which mandates collection and remittance of the levy for the national Cybersecurity Fund.

Titled, ‘Compliance with the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015: Collection and Remittance of levy for the National Cybersecurity Fund’, it stated: “All Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) and other affected Payment Service Providers (PSPs) are hereby directed to comply with the statutory provision for the collection and remittance of the 0.005 percent levy on all electronic transactions by the businesses specified in the second schedule of the Act.

CBN Headquarters

“The following notes shall guide the implementation: Electronic transactions shall be all financial transactions occurring in the bank or on a Mobile Money Scheme or any other payment platform that have an accompanying service charge; the levy shall be 0.005 percent of the service charge (exclusive of all tax effects) from all electronic financial transactions occurring in a bank, a Mobile Money Scheme and other Payment Platforms.

“All electronic transactions (both inter and intra) that have an accompanying service charge shall qualify as eligible transactions; the effective date of collection shall be with effect from July 1, 2018.”