The Central Bank of Nigeria, through the Nigerian Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) is collaborating with the Association of Mobile Money and Banking Agents of Nigeria (AMMBAN) to create a new feature on PoS terminals that will flag fraudulent transactions at agents by requesting specific KYC details before processing certain transactions.
“We are at a very advanced stage and we are close to completing the technological side in terms of enabling some features,” said Fasasi Sarafadeen Atanda, president of AMMBAN. He also noted that the Nigerian interbank settlement system is one of the driving forces behind the initiative.
The collaborative effort is also being led by the Nigerian Electronic Fraud Forum, Lilian Phido, NIBSS corporate communications manager, told TechCabal.
“The constant innovation within the sector has highlighted the need for the Central Bank to establish a dedicated body (called the Nigerian Electronic Fraud Forum) comprising all major players and stakeholders to work together proactively in collaboration as industry to ensure payment integrity. systems across the country,” Phido said.
The feature will be prominently displayed on agents at PoS terminals across the country. After a meeting with NIBSS last week, AMMBAN hopes to have the feature ready for launch by Q1 2024.
There is also a coalition of security agencies including the Nigeria Police Force, Department of State Services (DSS), AMMBAN and NIBSS to enable easy tracking of fraudsters at agent sites. The coalition hopes to impose a common identification system for more than 1.7 million banking agents listed in the AMMBAN database.
Discussions are also underway for agents to be trained and certified, but other stakeholders take a dim view of this strategy.
“The entry point for fraud is not the location of the agent but the fact that some accounts and wallets are not linked to real identities,” said Femi Omegbenigun, CEO of 3Line Card, a card trading company. Nigerian payment. “The fact that these accounts have underlying KYC issues means that agents are not always aware that the money they are disbursing is the proceeds of fraudulent transactions.”
And even though alert channels exist nationwide, officers used them only occasionally, the AMMBAN president said. There were times when bank officers raised concerns about particular transactions they considered suspicious and reported them to banks, but financial institutions took no action.
When the same problems were reported to security guards, they sometimes demanded money before taking action. “Individual agents are always discouraged from pushing for this because you will end up wasting your money and resources,” Atanda said.
While waiting for the new functionality on PoS terminals, Atanda says agents have started implementing the CBN’s BVN-NIN policy. New customers must provide either a BVN or NIN, or both, to open an account.
