CBN tells banks, fintechs to treat cyber risk as financial stability threat

Onyinye Nwachukwu




The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has warned banks, fintechs, and other financial institutions to treat cybersecurity, technology-vendor failures, and business continuity as financial-stability risks, saying vulnerabilities at a single institution could spread through the country’s increasingly interconnected financial system.

Rakiya Opemi Yusuf, director of the Payments System Supervision Department at the CBN and chairperson of the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum, said financial institutions can no longer view cybersecurity solely as an internal risk.

Speaking on Wednesday at the 19th Annual Banking and Finance Conference of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Abuja, Yusuf said growing reliance on fintechs, payment service providers, cloud operators and other technology companies has created new channels through which disruptions can spread.

“A weakness in one institution can have consequences for the wider ecosystem,” Yusuf said during a panel discussion on cyber and systemic risks in the AI-driven future of banking.

Read also: CBN tightens scrutiny of banks over terrorism financing risks

She urged banks and financial technology companies to map their dependencies and regularly assess the resilience of third-party providers, including their ability to withstand cyberattacks and recover from major operational failures.

The warning comes as Nigeria’s financial sector increasingly expands digital infrastructure and interconnected payment systems, making operational failures at technology providers…



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