By Peter Egwuatu

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, weekend, identified the non-passage of National Payment System Management Bill by the National Assembly, NASS, as hindrance to combating electronic fraud, even as banks lost $450 million to cyber attack in the last one year.

Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele

The CBN Director, Banking and Payment System Department, Dipo Fatokun, who disclosed this in Lagos to newsmen, said the various efforts by the apex bank and other stakeholders reduced cyber attacks by 63 percent in the last one year.

He revealed that CBN was working out regulatory framework that would enable it blacklist fraudulent banks’ customers and place them on watch list across the banking industry.

While commenting on the recent development in the electronic payments system and implications for consumers of electronic payment services, he said: “The issuance of cheque has reduced in 2016 from about over 14,000,000 in 2014 to less than 4,000,000 in 2016. Also, the Point of Sales, PoS, terminal transaction value in 2016 stood at above N400 billion from about less than N450 billion in 2015.

“Mobile transactions in 2016 reduced to less than 15,000,000 from January to March, as against over N40,000 000 in 2015. Furthermore, the number of active PoS at the end of August was 75,035 and number of ATMs deployed as at August was 17,000.”