The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has launched a major offensive against financial institutions that delay refunds to customers who fall victim to fraud. In a powerful move to protect consumers, the apex bank has issued a draft guideline with strict deadlines for both reporting and reimbursement.
Strict New Timelines for Fraud Complaints and Refunds
Under the new framework, customers who suspect fraudulent activity on their accounts now have a 72-hour window to report the incident to their bank or fintech company. Upon receiving a complaint, financial institutions are obligated to acknowledge it within 24 hours and immediately launch an investigation.
The CBN has given these institutions a maximum of 14 working days to conclude their investigations. Once a fraud case is confirmed, banks must process the refund to the customer within an additional 48 hours. This creates a total resolution timeline of 16 working days from the point of report to the refund being issued.
This decisive action comes in response to alarming data. Reports indicate that losses from fraud in the Nigerian financial system skyrocketed to ₦3.29 billion in just the first quarter of 2025. This represents a shocking 603 percent increase compared to the same period the previous year. The number of reported fraud cases also rose sharply to 12,347.
CBN Closes Loopholes and Holds Banks Accountable
The draft circular, dated November 26, 2025 and signed by Rita Sike, Director of the Financial Policy and Regulation Department, is designed to strengthen prevention measures and force greater accountability. A key focus is tackling Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, where scammers trick individuals into willingly authorising payments to criminal accounts.
The CBN notes that such fraud often succeeds due to weak internal controls, ignored red flags, slow response times, or even collusion with bank staff. The new rules aim to eliminate these vulnerabilities.
When a transaction involves multiple banks, the framework mandates that the originating bank must notify all others in the chain within 30 minutes. The collective resolution for such complex cases must still adhere to the 16-working-day deadline.
The guideline clearly states liability: if a bank’s failure to act or weak systems contributed to the fraud, that institution bears the full cost of the refund. In cases where neither the customer nor the banks are at fault, the financial institutions involved will share the refund responsibility equally.
Who Qualifies for a Refund and What Banks Must Do
To be eligible for a refund under the new rules, customers must:
- Report the fraud promptly within the 72-hour deadline.
- Fully cooperate with the investigation.
- Be found not to have been negligent or complicit in the fraud.
Refunds will be denied if customers acted carelessly, concealed facts, or missed the reporting window. Exceptions are made for delays caused by serious illness, force majeure events, unavailable bank reporting channels, or internal bank failures.
To comply, banks and other financial institutions are now required to:
- Operate 24/7 channels for fraud reporting.
- Deploy sophisticated early-warning systems to track suspicious behaviour.
- Document fraud patterns and report incidents regularly to the CBN.
- Run financial literacy programmes to educate customers on recognising scams.
This guideline is the latest in a decade-long series of anti-fraud reforms by the CBN, which includes the creation of the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) in 2011 and the mandatory use of BVN or NIN for account openings. The draft is open for public comment for three weeks before becoming binding.
The crackdown coincides with another major CBN directive that could see about three million bank accounts blocked for failing to have a Bank Verification Number (BVN) or National Identity Number (NIN) linked to them, further tightening identity verification in the financial sector.
