Nigeria’s apex bank (CBN) has cut down banking charges drastically for the first time in six years, promising cheaper digital transfers. A quietly reinstated stamp duty (now charged to the sender) means millions of Nigerians will pay higher total transaction costs from 1 May, not lower ones.
By Epiphanus Obia
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reduced the fee for sending money electronically between ₦5,000 and ₦50,000 to ₦10 under a draft charges guide released on 21 April 2026. But anyone transferring ₦15,000 (a normal amount for millions of Nigerians paying suppliers, family, or bills) will see ₦60 leave their account, instead of ₦10.
The extra ₦50 is stamp duty, reintroduced under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 and now charged to the sender on every transfer of ₦10,000 and above. Under the previous regime, that same ₦50 levy was deducted from the receiver, and the sender paid only the bank fee. The arrangement has changed, and the bill has gone up.
The CBN’s circular, signed by the Director of Financial Policy and Regulation, Dr Rita Sike, and addressed to all banks, other financial institutions, and the public, eliminates transfer fees for transactions below ₦5,000 and caps fees at ₦50 for transfers above ₦50,000. These are real reductions as the previous structure charged ₦25 for mid-range transfers and ₦50 for larger ones. The revised guide, which replaces the framework issued in January 2020, also scraps the ₦50 monthly maintenance fee on naira debit and credit cards and makes virtual cards permanently free.
Meanwhile, Nigeria reintroduced stamp duty in 2026 after five years of the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), a ₦50 flat charge that had applied to transfers of ₦10,000 and above since 2020. The structural change is the shift in who bears the cost: under the EMTL, the ₦50 was deducted from the receiver, but under the new stamp duty rules, it is deducted from the sender. For a customer sending ₦20,000 to pay debt, the bank fee has fallen from ₦25 to ₦10, thereby saving ₦15, and then the stamp duty adds ₦50. The net position is that the sender now pays ₦60 instead of ₦25, an increase of 140 per cent on the pre-existing cost.
The same arithmetic applies at the ₦50,000-plus tier. A transfer of ₦75,000 previously cost the sender ₦50 in bank fees, with the receiver absorbing the ₦50 EMTL, a total shared cost of ₦100. Under the new guide, the sender pays ₦50 in bank fees and ₦50 in stamp duty, making the total sender-side cost ₦100. The bank’s revenue from the transaction is unchanged; what has changed is that the government’s ₦50 share has moved from the receiver’s statement to the sender’s. For high-frequency senders (small businesses, market traders, logistics operators), this redistribution of cost will be felt every time any payment is made.
The impact falls unevenly across the population. In 2024, electronic payments in Nigeria crossed the ₦1 quadrillion mark, but a Moniepoint report found that only one in four informal businesses reported digital payments accounting for at least 10 per cent of their total revenue in 2025. For the majority of small and micro traders who are still being pulled into cashless transactions (often through PoS agents rather than by choice), each ₦50 stamp duty deduction is a new, recurring cost attached to a system they are only beginning to trust. The transfers most likely to cross the ₦10,000 threshold are also the ones that matter most to working Nigerians: school fees, household remittances, small supplier payments, and rent.
There is a clearer win buried in the same circular, and it concerns point-of-sale withdrawals. The PoS space has long operated with unofficial pricing, with agents in some parts of the country charging ₦100 per ₦5,000 withdrawn — a rate of ₦400 per ₦20,000. The new guide pegs the charge for on-us withdrawals, those processed through an agent affiliated with a customer’s own bank or fintech, at ₦100 per ₦20,000. Not-on-us withdrawals carry the same ₦100-per-₦20,000 base rate plus an additional agent-determined fee, which must be disclosed. In the first quarter of 2025, PoS terminals processed ₦116.79 billion per day across Nigeria, and the introduction of a disclosed, regulated baseline rate represents a meaningful step toward protecting cash-dependent Nigerians from unfair agent pricing.
The CBN has also raised the one-time cost of issuing or replacing a standard naira ATM card from ₦1,000 to ₦1,500 (a 50 per cent increase). In exchange, the ₦50 monthly maintenance fee previously charged on naira debit and credit cards has been abolished. A cardholder who keeps the same card for more than 30 months without replacement will eventually save money under the new structure. For customers who regularly lose, replace, or update cards, the upfront increase is a problem. Charges for premium, hybrid, and foreign currency cards remain outside the flat-rate structure, with dollar-denominated cards still attracting a $10 annual maintenance fee.
The broader logic behind the revised guide is consistent with the CBN’s stated ambition to accelerate the adoption of electronic payment channels and expand financial inclusion. By eliminating fees on transactions below ₦5,000, the regulator removes one of the last cost barriers to small digital payments for the lowest-income tier of users.
Making virtual cards free and shielding customers from PoS merchant charges, the new guide confirms that the Merchant Service Charge of 0.5 per cent, capped at ₦10,000, is borne entirely by merchants, reinforcing a policy direction that has been consistent since at least 2020. The tension is not between the CBN’s objectives and its instrument; it is between the CBN’s instrument and the fiscal objectives of the federal government, which are being pursued through the same transaction infrastructure.
The revised guide takes effect from 1 May 2026 and applies to all institutions under the CBN’s supervision, including commercial banks, microfinance banks, payment service banks, and mobile money operators.