NeFF Recommends CBN, NITDA To Collaborate To Protect Data

The Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) said it has recommended that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) work together in pursuing the enactment of a Data Protection Law for Nigeria.

The Sub-committee of NeFF made the recommendation to the central bank.

The Chairman of NeFF, Mr. Dipo Fatokun who said this in Lagos, during the unveiling of the forum’s 2015 annual report, restated the commitment of the federal government to forge alliance stakeholders in the e-payment value chain to curb electronic fraud in the payment system.

“The committee submitted its report yesterday (last Thursday) and has been given further work to come up with policies that will assist the banks and other players in the financial services industry on cloud computing,” Fatokun said.

According to him, another committee had been set up to consider the issue of fraud at merchant locations in terms of how some merchant may collide with some fraudsters, or fraudster using their channel to commit fraud and how such merchants and acquirers (banks) can protect themselves.

He added: “We are monitoring what is happening in the payment space. If the attempt is increasing, and the losses are decreasing, it means that the activities of regulators and collaborative organisations like NeFF are actually yielding the expected result.”

Fatokun noted that lack of knowledge was the main reason why the spate of electronic fraud has not abated, adding that the forum considered it necessary at its quarterly meeting to educate members on activities of fraudsters.

“The normal strategies is that the forum comes together to discuss, debate and agree, then go back with policy formulation which is escalated to the committee of governors of the CBN. They will consider the type of proposal that we bring that could make the payment system safer. If they approve it, we will then issue it as a policy circular to the industry. This will become something that is binding on everybody.

“The industry is speaking with one voice and we are monitoring what is happening. Over time, when the attempts are increasing and the losses are decreasing, it would discourage those making the attempts because what this means is that lower number of fraud attempts are resulting in losses to bank customers. So we are making that space to be left remunerative. This shows that we are making progress,” he said.

Also speaking at the event, the Director, Consumer Protection, CBN, Umma Dutse said: “We are inundated with several claims and counter-claims that show how exposed and unprotected we can be when we fail to observe the etiquettes that govern the use of e-payment products.”