CYBERSECURITY LEVY IS NOT 0.5% BUT 0.005% – FG CLARIFIES

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The Presidency has clarified that the recently introduced cybersecurity levy on all banks and financial services is 0.005%, and not 0.5% as previously reported.

Bayo Onanuga, the spokesperson to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, made the clarification in a social media post on Tuesday.

Onanuga stated that the levy is in line with the establishment law, and urged the public to disregard the earlier report of 0.5%. “Cybersecurity levy is not 0.5% but 0.005%,” he wrote.The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had on Monday ordered.

Recall that Hotjist in an earlier post, reported that in a circular released on Monday by CBN, the Apex Bank had mandated all deposit money including mobile money operators and payment service providers to impose a 0.5% cybersecurity levy on all transactions.

“Following the enactment of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) (amendment) Act 2024 and pursuant to the provision of Section 44 (2) (a) of the Act, ‘a levy of 0.5% (0.005) equivalent to a half percent of all electronic transactions value by the business specified in the Second Schedule of the Act’, is to be remitted to the National Cybersecurity Fund (NCF), which shall be administered by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA),” the circular partly read.

The apex bank said that the implementation of the levy would start two weeks from the date of the circular.

“The levy shall be applied at the point of electronic transfer origination, then deducted and remitted by the financial institution. The deducted amount shall be reflected in the customer’s account with the narration, ‘Cybersecurity Levy’.

“Deductions shall commence within two weeks from the date of this circular for all financial institutions and the monthly remittance of the levies collected in bulk to the NCF account domiciled at the CBN by the fifth business day of every subsequent month,” the circular added.

The following are exempt from the levy: salary payments, loan disbursements and repayments, intra-bank transfers between clients of the same bank, and intra-account transfers within the same bank or between other banks for the same customer.

Interbranch transfers within banks, check clearing and settlements, letters of credit, bulk fund movements from collection accounts, savings and deposits, including long-term investment transactions, and banks’ recapitalization-related funding were among the other items excluded from the levy.

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