NAN – The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday, January 20, 2015 directed all commercial banks to implement a maker or checker control structure for all payment platforms by Thursday, December 31, 2015.
The bank gave the directive in a circular entitled: “Implementation of Two-factor Authentication for Internal Banking Processes”.
It said that the aim was to check insider abuse by commercial banks.
The circular was issued by Mr Dipo Fatokun, CBN’s Director for Banking and Payments System Department.
It said that the abuse revolved around identity theft and authorization abuse.
The apex bank said that the increased use of automation in most banking payment processes had escalated insider abuse in banks with weak authentication procedures.
The CBN, therefore, directed commercial banks to ensure that their control structure for all payment platforms included account and database system maintenances on core banking systems.
It said:”The risk appetite or capacity of individual banks would be a key factor in considering transaction limits for maker and checker roles.
“They (commercial banks) should also implement two-factor authentication at login points for applications driving transfer, withdrawal, deposit, standing order, account maintenance and system maintenance processes.”
The CBN said that an implementation plan from banks should be submitted to it by Friday, January 30, 2015.
It added that all payment processing (gateways and third party processors) should put in place fraud monitoring tool to check transfers from an account to multiple bank accounts by Thursday, December 31, 2015.
It said that all banks should fully comply by Dec. 31, warning that defaulting banks would incur a penalty of N50,000 daily.
