CBN Issues ePayments Regulation, Introduces Fines

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a regulation on the end-to-end electronic payment of salaries, pensions and other remittances, suppliers and revenue collections in Nigeria.

The apex bank disclosed this in a circular to all Deposit Money Banks, Other Financial Institutions and the general public on, ‘Exposure draft for the regulation on end-to-end electronic payment of salaries, pensions and other remittances, suppliers and revenue collections in Nigeria, revised 2018’  on Tuesday.

In the regulation, the CBN introduced a penalty of N2.5m on DMBs and Other Financial Institutions on every repeated occurrence of specific infractions and termination of the use of the unapproved end-to-end e-payment solution.

It also introduced other fines for other forms of infractions.

The regulator stated that the objective of the end-to-end electronic payment of salaries, pensions, suppliers and taxes initiative was fully aligned with the core objectives of the National Payment Systems Vision 2020, which was to ensure the availability of safe, effective and efficient mechanisms for conveniently making and receiving all types of payments from any location and at any time, through multiple electronic channels.

The apex bank noted that this would reduce the time and costs of transactions, minimise leakages in revenue receipts and at the same time provide reliable audit trails, thereby making the Nigerian payments system align with international best practices.

“This regulation, therefore, is set out to provide all stakeholders with the operational procedures and regulations that guide end-to-end electronic payment, as defined in section 6.0(i) of this regulation, of all forms of salaries, pensions, suppliers and taxes in Nigeria including levies, social payments, penalties, recovery, bills, honorarium etc,” the CBN stated.

It described the end-to-end electronic payment as, “the seamless electronic processing and payment of all forms of salaries, pensions, suppliers and taxes with the electronic delivery of associated schedules alongside the payment transactions, where applicable on a bank approved electronic platform which transmits the instruction to debit a payer’s account and credit a beneficiary’s bank account.”