Fraudsters Rake In N134bn From Banks, Customers – CBN

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)

Banks and their customers lost a combined N134.48bn to fraud between 2020 and 2025 amid a significant expansion in digital payments and financial technology adoption across the country. This is according to data contained in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Nigeria Payments System Vision 2028 document.

The document, obtained from the apex bank’s website, showed that attempted fraud across the banking and payments ecosystem amounted to N187.79bn during the six-year period, while actual losses stood at N134.48bn.

An analysis of the data showed that fraud losses increased steadily from N11.61bn in 2020 to N12.77bn in 2021 and N14.32bn in 2022. The figure rose further to N17.67bn in 2023 before surging dramatically to N52.26bn in 2024, the highest annual loss recorded within the six-year period.

It read, “Fraud amounts in Internet Banking, Mobile, and POS channels declined, yet overall losses rose by 196 per cent, primarily due to a major internal case involving N30bn. Web fraud incidents also increased by 169 per cent.

Fraud losses rose by 23 per cent, largely due to a spike in e-Commerce incidents, which escalated by 1,961 per cent. Mobile, POS, and Web channels recorded moderate increases.

In 2025, electronic payment fraud declined by 51 per cent, demonstrating the success of stricter regulations, increased industry cooperation, enhanced prevention strategies, and improved monitoring.”

WOW.