Nigeria Loses N134.48bn to e-Payment Fraud — Digital Growth Fuels Criminal Exposure

Nigeria's banking sector and its customers collectively lost N134.48 billion to electronic payment fraud between 2020 and 2025, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria's Payments System Vision 2028 document. The figure emerges as Nigeria accelerates its cashless economy agenda, revealing a structural vulnerability: rapid digitisation without proportional fraud infrastructure creates compounding financial losses. For fintech operators, neobanks, and mobile money platforms competing in Nigeria's payments corridor, this data signals intensifying regulatory scrutiny ahead of the 2028 framework rollout. Fraud losses at this scale erode consumer trust — a critical resource for platforms targeting unbanked populations in Lagos, Abuja, and secondary cities. The CBN's own documentation of this exposure suggests forthcoming compliance obligations around fraud detection, liability frameworks, and transaction monitoring may tighten significantly. Operators building on Nigerian payment rails should treat this disclosure as an early indicator of incoming regulatory adjustment.