CBN Latches Down on Banks as Terror Financing Surveillance Takes Top Priority
ABUJA—The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has officially elevated terrorism financing supervision to a top-tier regulatory priority, launching an aggressive surveillance campaign across all banks and financial institutions to lock out illicit actors from the nation’s financial grid.
The sweeping directive, announced Tuesday in a statement by Hakama Sidi-Ali, Acting Director of Corporate Communications, triggers an immediate escalation in transaction tracking and compliance enforcement. The statement emphasized the move is “as part of its ongoing commitment to protecting the Nigerian financial system from abuse by illicit actors.”
Moving forward, the apex bank will deploy a rigorous risk-based supervisory model, combining unannounced on-site physical examinations with continuous off-site digital monitoring. Under this framework, regulatory scrutiny will heavily concentrate on high-risk institutions, customers, and complex transaction pathways rather than distributing oversight evenly.
The CBN’s tightened dragnet specifically mandates all regulated entities—including commercial banks and Payment Service Banks (PSBs)—to radically overhaul their compliance infrastructure across four critical battlegrounds.
These included comprehensive terrorism financing risk management, real-time automated transaction monitoring, flawless execution of targeted international financial sanctions, and instantaneous reporting of suspicious activity (STRs).
The regulatory clampdown follows a strict, zero-tolerance directive issued by the CBN Compliance Department on June 24, 2026. That order instructed all financial institutions operating under the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020 to immediately freeze the accounts and seize the assets of blacklisted individuals and corporate entities.
The targeted targets were designated under joint anti-terror sweeps by the Nigeria Sanctions Committee and the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under Executive Order 13224.
By linking arms with Washington and reinforcing domestic intelligence networks, the CBN aims to permanently sanitize Nigeria’s financial system, insulate it against money laundering (AML), and cut off the financial lifelines of global terror networks.
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