Finding Mr President
Nigerians don’t know where their president is and the VP has cancelled a major appointment
Is this a safe space, Big Brains? I think being a Nigerian should be enough qualification for anybody to get hired at their dream workplace. Our resilience in tough times means we’re experts at punching above our weight.
– Margaret
Word count: ~1200
Reading time: ~ 2 mins
Let’s get into today’s edition:
Nigeria increased the tax on electronic transfers by 900%
Shettima will miss US-Africa Summit due to aircraft issues. President Tinubu's location remains unclear
Nigeria orders 1.9 million PoS agents to register with CAC to reduce fraud
5 Nigerians Dazzle at the MET Gala
The Big Deal
Nigeria increased the tax on electronic transfers by 900%
TW - your annoying bank charges are about to get even more annoying and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is responsible. CBN has ordered that banks in the country start charging a 0.5% cybersecurity levy on all electronic transactions instead of the former 0.005%. This increase is due to the implementation of an amended 2015 Cybersecurity Act that ensures the protection of critical national information infrastructure and promotes cybersecurity. The 900% increase is expected to take effect from May 20. In the next two weeks, you’ll have to get used to being charged ₦5 if you transfer ₦1000, ₦500 if you transfer ₦100,000 and ₦5,000 if you transfer ₦1,000,000. We can keep doing the math but we’re not trying to ruin your morning.
But there are a few exceptions,
When this levy kicks off in two weeks, transactions like loan disbursement and repayment, salary payment, school fees payment, pension and money transfers within the same bank will not be affected. Other transactions like cheque clearing and settlements, letters of credit, funding for bank recapitalization, and transactions involving large amounts of money from collection accounts, savings, deposits, and long-term investments are also exempted.
What happens to fintechs that offer free transfers?
The new law requires all banks and financial institutions to pay the levies to the federal government by the 5th of each month. If they don't, they could be fined at least 2% of their annual income. So there’s a possibility that fintechs that currently offer free transfers would start sending notice of charges increase to their customers in the next two weeks.
The out-of-bank numbers are about to go up again…
If you don’t understand this reference, that means you missed yesterday’s edition (not to sound confrontational but do better, Big Brains). The scarcity of naira notes is currently on the rise and the present figure of money stuck outside the banking system is ₦3.63 trillion which is about 90% of the total currency in circulation. This means that with every passing day, more Nigerians are deciding to hoard their money instead of keeping cash in the bank.
The possible cause of this could be general distrust in the banking system or hunting memories from the cash shortage we experienced after CBN introduced new banknotes in October 2022. This levy could contribute to this rising figure. Some Nigerians are already contemplating spending more cash which goes against CBN’s cashless policy goal. The implication of the rising number of out-of-bank currencies is increased inflation and exchange rate depreciation.
Shettima to miss US-Africa Summit due to aircraft issue, President Tinubu's location remains unclear
Vice President Kashim Shettima, who was set to represent President Tinubu at the 2024 US-Africa Business Summit has changed plans because of a “technical fault with his aircraft”. This was revealed in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications. According to him, the vice president had to cancel the trip based on the advice of the managers of the Presidential Air Fleet.
With the President and VP being unavailable, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will represent the country at the summit.
Where’s the president?
On Monday, Presidential Aspirant Atiku tweeted on X about the president’s disappearance and it sparked public interest. As expected, the conspiracy theories about the President’s location are already rolling in. Some Nigerians believe that the president is in London receiving treatment, others believe that he’s completely missing and there are speculations that he’s taking some time off to rest after the hectic year he has had. Our favourite conspiracy theory is that the president is currently in Gilbert Chagoury’s (who has been enlisted as his confidante in an official list in 2023) castle in France. The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy mentioned vaguely on X yesterday that the president “along with his aides will return from Europe” today but to Nigerians, seeing is believing.
Nigeria orders 1.9 million PoS agents to register with CAC to reduce fraud
According to a fraud report by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), Point of Sale (PoS) terminals accounted for 26.37% of fraud incidents in 2023. Shade, an Ankara vendor in Eko market, is one of the 26.37%. In 2023, Shade’s savings account was wiped clean after falling victim to PoS scammers who stole her card details to process the unauthorized transaction. She told The Big Daily that she has never attempted to use PoS for cash withdrawals since then.
The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) of Nigeria has now made it compulsory for the country’s 1.9 million PoS agents to be registered under the corporation to protect Nigerians from PoS-related fraud and improve transparency.
In the past, CBN’s regulatory framework for agency banking only required fintechs to provide agent names, addresses, and phone numbers during onboarding. The new rule could take away the simple onboarding process which was the selling point for fintechs who dominated the market.
Why does this matter?
Owning PoS terminals is now a major income source for many Nigerians nationwide and has helped decrease the high unemployment rate in the country. Onboarding new PoS owners would now be more difficult because business registration can be complicated and sometimes involves hiring a lawyer. The process could force Nigerians who are currently in the business or had intentions of delving into this business to consider other sources of income. A drop in the number of PoS agents would impact citizens by reducing the availability of PoS terminals, which are convenient alternatives to long Automated Teller Machine (ATM) queues.
Some fintechs, like Moniepoint and Palmpay, are taking a proactive approach. In February, Moniepoint partnered with the CAC to digitize the operations of over 2 million small businesses. Palmpay also formed a similar agreement with CAC to register over 200,000 businesses. For customers of these fintechs, the registration should be easier given their partnership with the corporation.
5 Nigerians Dazzle at the MET Gala
If there are Nigerians in South Korea, best believe we’ll be at the MET Gala too. The MET Gala season is always one of the most interesting times for Nigerians. We join in the online banter, judging everything - from the theme to the outfits, and this year, we even get to judge the carpet which reminds Nigerians of “bad governance and oppression”.
At last year’s Gala, we had some of our favourite celebrities like Tems attend the event. This year, we are living vicariously through all the Nigerian-Americans, including Wisdom Kaye who we are biased enough to call the best-dressed male celebrity, that graced the MET Gala.
Other celebrities of Nigerian descent like Damson Idris, Ayo Edebiri, Nnamdi Asomugha and Chioma Nnadi (the editor of British Vogue) were also at the gala.
This Week’s Big Question
“If money was not a problem, what would you spend the rest of your life doing?”’
Raymond’s response - “I’ll probably just open a diner and build a shelter for homeless kids.”
You can also share your response here and if it’s as interesting as Raymond’s response, we’ll feature it in the next edition.
The Big Picks
Nigeria’s Electricity Regulator Orders Cap on Power Supply to Benin, Niger, and Togo to Boost Availability in Nigeria: Nigeria is cutting down on power supply to international customers and if things go well, this would improve the country’s electricity supply.
OpenAI Unveils Tool To Detect DALL-E Images: Yesterday, OpenAI, the company supported by Microsoft and known for the popular image generator DALL-E, introduced a new tool that finds out if digital images were generated by AI.
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