Banks loss N25.85b to fraud last year, the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) Plc has said in a data.
The figure, the data showed, was a crash from the N52.26 billion fraud counts recorded in 2024. According to the data, fraud cases across the banks also dropped from 123,918 in 2021 to 67,515 in 2025.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) attributed the decline in both value and volume of fraud to the country’s progress in identity management.
CBN’s Deputy Governor (Financial System Stability), Philip Ikeazor, said the introduction of Bank Verification Number (BVN), and its ongoing integration with the National Identification Number (NIN), has significantly constrained impersonation and synthetic identity fraud.
Ikeazor spoke yesterday in Lagos at the technical kick-off session of the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF), which has “Shrinking fraud losses ISO 20022 & identity management”, as its theme.
The CBN official said noted that enhanced identity verification across banking, agent networks and high-risk digital channels is steadily closing gaps previously exploited by criminals.
