Circular on the Review of Operations of the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) System and Other EPayment Options with Similar Features

CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA Central Business District P.M.B. 0187, Garki, Abuja. +234 - 0946238445 BANKING AND PAYMENTS SYSTEM DEPARTMENT BPS/DIR/GEN/CIR/01/011 August 13, 2014 To: All Banks CIRCULAR ON THE REVIEW OF OPERATIONS OF THE NIBSS INSTANT PAYMENT (NIP) SYSTEM AND OTHER ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS OPTIONS WITH SIMILAR FEATURES In order to further strengthen the risk aversion measures put in place for the operations of the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) system, and other electronic payments options with similar features, the Central Bank of Nigeria hereby issues the following directives: A categorization of online funds transfer from low security to highly secured transfer, with limits 1.

as specified below.

S/N	Category	Required Control	Daily Limit for	Daily Limit for Next
	Instant Value	Working Day Value
i.	Highly	Secured	-	Hardware	Token	Individual: ₦1m	Individual: N10m
Online	Fund	Token	Corporate: N10M	Corporate: N100m
Transfer	-	Behavioural Monitoring
(WEF-Jan	15,	B	SMS/Email Trans Alert
2015)	-	User Name/Password
e	Anti-phishing Solution
ii.	Moderately Secure	.	Hardware/Soft Token	Individual: ₦500k	Individual: N1m
Online	Fund	-	User ID and Password	Corporate: A45m	Corporate: N10m
Transfer	E	SMS/Email Trans Alert
(WEF-Jul	30,	u	Anti-phishing Solution
2014)
iii.	Basic Security	OTP
"	(One-Time-	Individual: N200k	Individual: ₦1m
(WEF-Jul	30,	Password).
2014)	u	User ID and Password
u	SMS /Email Trans Alert
iv.	Low Security	u	User ID and Password	Individual: N20k	Individual: ₦100k
(WEF-Jul	30,	u	SMS/Email Trans Alert
2014)

Banks are expected to achieve "Highly Secured Online Funds Transfer" status within six (6) months, i.e. with a deadline Of 31st December 2014.

Limits of N1million (Instant value) and N10million (Next day value) shall be applied for NIP and NEFT respectively, and other electronic payments options with similar features, initiated by individuals, with effect from 1st September, 2014. There shall be no limit on the amount that can be received into a customer's bank account from the platform.

For same day value (NIP), the maximum amount that can be transferred by an individual (cumulative) is N5 million.

5. A customer shall issue a written indemnity to the bank, where they chooses to initiate transactions above the limits specified in item 1 above, subject to maximums of ₦5 million and N100 million for individual and corporate customers respectively 6. Banks are to establish internal procedures/policies for variants of the N5 million limits.

Transactions above the N1 million limit could be delayed by the receiving bank for not more than one (1) hour (as opposed to the current 2 minutes), before applying credit.

7. Limits of N10 million (Instant value) and N100 million (Next day value) shall be applied for NIP and NEFT, respectively, and other electronic payments options with similar features, initiated by corporates with effect from 1st September 2014.

8. Transfers above N100 million shall be effected through the Real Time Gross-Settlement System (RTGS)

9. Banks are expected to return unapplied funds within 10 minutes, where their fraud/risk management systems flag such as suspicious or fraudulent.

10. Banks are also expected to communicate the aforementioned policies clearly to their customers and give adequate notice, before implementation 11. Banks should encourage customers to pre-register beneficiaries of online transfers 12. Banks are encouraged to confirm all email transfer requests via the accounts officers

Best Regards, Director, Banking & Payments System Department