CBN Warns Banks and Fintechs to Boost Cybersecurity

In Short

• The Central Bank of Nigeria has warned banks and fintechs to tighten cybersecurity.
• The focus is third-party technology risk, meaning weaknesses in vendors can become weaknesses for everyone.
• The CBN says financial institutions should plan for resilience, not just prevention.

What Happened

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has urged Nigerian banks, Moniepoint, OPay, and other financial institutions to shore up defences against cyber attacks and third-party technology risks.

The message was delivered by Rakiya Yusuf, Director of the CBN Payments System Supervision Department and Chairperson of the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum. She spoke at the 19th Annual Banking and Finance Conference of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria in Abuja.

Yusuf said growing dependence on fintech partners, payment service providers, cloud operators, and other technology vendors is creating more pathways for cyber and systemic risk. Third-party risk is the security risk that comes from companies you rely on, like an outsourced data host or a payments processor.

She warned that a weakness in one institution or vendor can spread quickly across connected players. She described this as a “one-fire” effect, meaning one incident can cascade through the wider network and hurt financial stability.

The CBN’s message also stressed resilience. Resilience means being able to keep critical services running during disruption, and recovering fast afterwards.

Why It Matters

Nigeria’s financial system is tightly connected. Banks, mobile money operators, and payment gateways share infrastructure, integrations, and vendors.

For fintech operators, this warning is a signal that regulators are paying close attention to controls like vendor due diligence, incident response plans, and ongoing monitoring. For banks, it reinforces that cybersecurity cannot stop at internal systems if customer journeys depend on external platforms.

The report does not mention any funding or investment activity involving Moniepoint or other fintechs. The key takeaway is regulatory pressure to strengthen security and third-party governance across the payments ecosystem.