A CBN report has revealed that Nigerian banks and their customers lost N134.48bn to fraud between 2020 and 2025, with 2024 recording the worst single-year losses largely due to a N30bn internal fraud incident.
Nigeria’s digital payments revolution is booming, but so is its fraud problem. A sobering new report from the Central Bank of Nigeria has laid bare just how costly that dark side has become.
According to data contained in the CBN’s Nigeria Payments System Vision 2028 document, as reported by PM NEWS,banks and their customers lost a combined N134.48bn to fraud between 2020 and 2025, with attempted fraud across the banking and payments ecosystem amounting to N187.79bn during the same period.
The numbers tell a story of steady escalation. Fraud losses rose from N11.61bn in 2020 to N12.77bn in 2021 and N14.32bn in 2022, climbing further to N17.67bn in 2023 before surging sharply to N52.26bn in 2024 — the highest annual loss recorded during the period.
That 2024 spike wasn’t just bad luck. The report attributed the sharp rise largely to a major internal fraud case, noting that “Fraud amounts in Internet Banking, Mobile, and POS channels declined, yet overall losses rose by 196 per cent, primarily due to a major internal case involving N30bn. Web fraud incidents also increased by 169 per cent.”
There is, however, a silver lining. Losses from digital payment fraud fell to N25.85bn in 2025, down from N52.26bn the previous year — a 51 per cent decline — suggesting that tightened controls are beginning to bite.
The losses cut across ATMs, mobile banking, POS terminals, e-commerce and internet banking platforms.
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