Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has fined three Nigerian commercial banks a total of N800 million over cryptocurrency transactions.
Gatekeepers News reports that the apex bank had in a circular last year (2021) stopped all commercial banks from executing cryptocurrency transactions in the country.
According to Bloomberg, the sanctions are part of the CBN’s efforts to tighten down on cryptocurrency, ensuring that commercial restrictions on cryptocurrency trading are in place. It was also revealed that the CBN has the ability to detect cryptocurrency transactions that commercial banks may have overlooked.
The affected banks are; Stanbic IBTC Bank, Access Bank Plc, and United Bank for Africa.
According to the report, Access Bank Plc was fined N500 million for failing to shut down customers’ crypto accounts.
United Bank for Africa Plc was fined N100 million naira for a customer’s digital-currency transactions.
CBN penalized Stanbic IBTC Bank, the local unit of Standard Bank Group Ltd., N200 million for two accounts allegedly used for crypto transactions.
Chief Executive Officer of Stanbic IBTC, Wole Adeniyi, at an investor conference call in Lagos, stated that the bank followed the CBN’s orders, suggesting that the transactions for which it was sanctioned may have passed through its system undetected.
He said the CBN was able to detect the relevant transactions using “advanced capacity” that Nigerian lenders do not have access to, and they have urged the central bank to share the technology.
