CBN Orders Banks, Fintechs to Deploy AI Systems to Combat Money Laundering in Nigeria

Nigeria’s financial regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria, has introduced new anti-money-laundering (AML) guidelines requiring banks, fintech companies, and payment service providers to adopt artificial intelligence-driven monitoring systems to detect and prevent financial crimes. 

The updated framework directs financial institutions to replace largely manual compliance processes with automated platforms capable of identifying suspicious transactions, profiling customer risk, and supporting regulatory reporting.

According to the new rules, institutions must implement integrated AML solutions that can perform sanctions screening, monitor politically exposed persons, track unusual transaction patterns, and generate alerts for possible fraud or money-laundering activities. These systems are also expected to connect directly with core banking and customer onboarding platforms so that transactions can be assessed based on behaviour, history, and risk profile rather than being reviewed individually.

The regulator explained that the decision reflects the rapid digital growth of Nigeria’s financial sector, where mobile banking, fintech services, and instant payment platforms have significantly increased transaction volumes and complexity. With the expansion of digital finance, manual monitoring alone is no longer considered sufficient to manage emerging risks.

Under the framework, financial institutions are encouraged to use artificial intelligence tools such as anomaly detection, behavioural analysis, and automated risk scoring to strengthen compliance efforts. However, the guidelines require strict oversight of these systems, including regular independent validation and the ability to clearly explain why a transaction is flagged for investigation.

Push for Global Compliance Standards

The policy aligns Nigeria’s financial crime supervision with international standards promoted by the Financial Action Task Force, which recommends risk-based monitoring supported by advanced analytics.

Nigeria operates one of Africa’s fastest-growing digital payment ecosystems, and the rise in electronic transactions has made it more difficult to detect fraud through traditional reviews. Automated monitoring systems allow financial institutions to analyse large volumes of transactions in real time and identify patterns linked to fraud, money laundering, or terrorist financing.

Recent industry data from the Financial Institutions Training Centre showed a sharp increase in fraud losses during 2025, highlighting the need for stronger monitoring tools across the banking and fintech sectors.

With the new directive, the central bank aims to create a unified financial crime detection structure in which banks, fintech firms, and payment processors can identify suspicious activity earlier and share intelligence more effectively with regulators. The move also signals a broader global trend in which regulators expect financial institutions to combine fraud detection, AML surveillance, and customer identity verification into a single technology-driven compliance system.