The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has limited daily contactless payments to fifty thousand naira.
The type of payments, the CBN explained were payments made without physical contact between payment devices such as prepaid, debit and credit cards, key fobs, mobile electronic devices,and wearable devices up to 000 limit
The director of the CBN’s Payment Systems Management Department, Musa Jimoh disclosed that the decision was taken because contactless payments were risky.
Jimoh said:
“Verification and authorisation would be required for transactions above the limits.”
He further revealed that transactions above the limit were “subject to existing know-your-customer (KYC) requirements and restrictions on electronic payment channels.”
The statement read:
“FOLLOWING THE ISSUANCE OF THE GUIDELINES ON CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS IN NIGERIA AND IN COGNISANCE OF THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS, THE BANK, HEREBY, DEFINES TRANSACTION LIMITS ABOVE WHICH VERIFICATION AND AUTHORISATION ARE REQUIRED.
“TRANSACTION LIMITS FOR CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS THROUGH ACCOUNTS/WALLETS IN NIGERIA SHALL BE AS FOLLOWS: TRANSACTION LIMIT 15,000, DAILY CUMULATIVE LIMIT N50,000.
“HIGHER-VALUE CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS ARE TRANSACTIONS THAT EXCEED THE ABOVE-STATED LIMITS AND SHALL REQUIRE APPROPRIATE VERIFICATION AND AUTHORISATION.
“LIMITS ABOVE THIS STIPULATED DAILY CUMULATIVE LIMIT SHALL BE CONDUCTED USING CONTACT-BASED TECHNOLOGY.”
