The Biggest Threat to Nigerian Fintech Companies

Good People, Nigeria should declare a financial state of emergency on “Cyberfraud, Identity Theft & Wire Fraud” in the nation. In the last three years, many fintech startups have failed, not because of market conditions, but because of this fraud vector. 

Simply, this is now beyond EFCC which continues to do its best, but I think the nation must INVEST resources to combat this. May I also note that the National Identification Number (NIN) has introduced new layers here. In other words, the NINs are perpetually ACTIVE even when the owners have passed, meaning that criminals can play with them, and cause havoc in the nation. 

The National Assembly must compel the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to work with the National Population Commission to retire/deactivate NIN numbers once the owners have moved to the ancestors of Nigeria. 

More so, I am using this opportunity to ask banks to add a delay protocol in the stack which will give customers 12 hours before an online initiated debit is executed on their accounts, for an amount in excess of N1 million, irrespective of how the action was initiated. You can make this OPT-IN; we survived in the age of 3-day cheque clearance, a half-day will not be a problem even in this era. 

( I also propose for any transfer to settle for at least 24 hours before it could be further transferred. The idea that someone can receive N10m and can wire to 20 accounts immediately does not advance us. That money must be required to at least “sleep” before it could be moved around) 

More so, the value of hardware token should be well communicated to customers, especially business customers. I also expect a locked IP feature which will make it possible for customers to lock IP addresses through which debits could be initiated on their bank accounts. In other words, any transaction initiated outside that “computer IP” will not work.

We must push new innovations to stop these criminals even as the legal system ramps up fire on these low species. Bankers’ Committee: please take note and lead again.