Nigeria’s financial institutions are collaborating less effectively than the cybercriminal networks targeting them, weakening the sector’s ability to combat fraud despite the rapid growth of digital payments, a new report by the Bridgforte Centre for Global Impact has found.
The finding was disclosed yesterday at the launch of the think tank’s maiden flagship report, “Trust Architecture in Platform-Led Finance,” which brought together industry leaders, regulators and fintech executives to examine the future of trust in Nigeria’s financial ecosystem.
Presenting the report, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and founder of Bridgforte, Aishah Ahmad, said trust should no longer be regarded as a competitive advantage belonging to individual banks or fintech companies, but as a shared asset across the entire financial ecosystem.
The report was based on a closed-door Executive Table held in Lagos in February 2026, involving 30 senior executives from across Nigeria’s financial sector.
It identified institutional mistrust and the reluctance of financial institutions to share information for competitive reasons as the biggest barriers to coordinated action against fraud. These challenges ranked above legal, regulatory and technological obstacles.
According to the report, fraud losses in Nigeria’s digital payments ecosystem increased from N12.7 billion in 2021 to N52.26 billion in 2024, largely due to a single N31.1 billion incident. The losses, however, fell to N25.85 billion in 2025 following improved collaboration across the industry.
Delivering the keynote address, Deputy Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Fundi Tshazibana, described trust as a form of critical economic infrastructure, stressing that financial stability remains essential to achieving sustainable economic growth.
At the panel session, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sparkle and former Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank, Uzoma Dozie, said cybercriminals currently demonstrate stronger information-sharing practices than financial institutions.
“The real organised sector today is the cyber criminals because they share information. Banks don’t,” he said.
Dozie said Nigeria’s banking culture developed around a system where institutions treated information as a competitive asset. However, he argued that the digital finance environment now demands greater collaboration among banks, fintech companies, telecommunications operators and regulators to improve resilience against cyber threats.
He also urged regulators to speed up the implementation of open banking, describing it as a national imperative that should not depend solely on voluntary participation by industry players.
Similarly, Chief Executive Officer of Bank of Kigali, Dr Dianne Karusisi, said banks across many African markets have traditionally regarded fintech firms and telecommunications companies as competitors rather than partners serving the same customers.
The report further found that poor service delivery, rather than fraud alone, is the leading contributor to declining public confidence in digital financial services.
Participants ranked transaction failures and service reliability as the most significant factors undermining trust, with a score of 6.8 out of eight. Dispute resolution and customer recourse mechanisms followed with 6.0, placing both ahead of fraud, cybersecurity, data privacy and artificial intelligence.
On the overall resilience of trust in Nigeria’s financial ecosystem, respondents awarded an average score of 5.4 out of 10, indicating only moderate confidence in the system.
Executive Director of the Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation, Prof. Chizor Ndukwe-Okafor, said unresolved customer complaints and fragmented accountability continue to weaken public confidence in formal financial services.
She recalled the case of a customer whose payment card failed while travelling and who was asked by his bank to return to the location where the transaction occurred before the matter could be resolved. She described the situation as evidence of weak customer recourse mechanisms.
Ndukwe-Okafor also called for improved accessibility within the financial system, noting that several digital platforms and automated teller machines remain difficult for persons with disabilities to use.
Co-founder of PiggyVest, Odunayo Eweniyi, said building trust sometimes requires difficult operational decisions. She recalled that the savings platform temporarily suspended its service only months after launching in 2016 in order to strengthen its security infrastructure.
Among its recommendations, the report called on the CBN and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to strengthen interoperable digital identity infrastructure and urged the introduction of mandatory industry-wide fraud intelligence sharing.
It also advised financial institutions to treat dispute resolution as a strategic investment rather than a cost centre. The recommendations are consistent with the CBN’s Payments System Vision 2028, which includes plans for the establishment of a National Payments Trust Index.
With Nigeria’s financial system now processing more than N1.07 quadrillion in annual transactions, the report warned that stronger collaboration, improved customer protection and greater institutional trust will be critical to sustaining confidence in the country’s rapidly expanding digital finance ecosystem.
