The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Nigeria’s government to create a “robust and adequate” framework to combat cybercrime in the financial sector.
On May 6, Nigeria’s central bank directed banks and other financial institutions to introduce a 0.5 per cent cybersecurity tax on electronic payments.
According to the apex bank, the deductions will go to the national cybersecurity fund, which will be managed by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
Responding to queries about the new fee during a virtual media briefing on the release of Nigeria’s Article IV Consultation staff report on Thursday, Christian Ebeke, the IMF‘s resident representative in Nigeria, stated that cybersecurity is an important problem.
Ebeke stated that it is something that must be handled very seriously because to the possible financial instability caused by cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
He said:
“This is an issue that we take very seriously at the IMF and in fact, our global financial stability report in April highlighted the importance of designing adequate frameworks and adequate regulation to tackle cybersecurity.”
“In the case of Nigeria… I understand that the house of representative voted a motion to basically pause the implementation of this cybersecurity levy that was part of the cybercrime act that was just adopted lately.
“So, we have not discussed this particular issue with the authorities, but as I mentioned, it’s something that is very serious and we encourage the authorities to actually work towards having an adequate framework around cybersecurity and more generally designing something that is robust and sufficiently efficient to tackle this very, very important issue for the financial sector.”