africa - Calabash

Wire transfer confirmation on a phone screen, petroleum-orange light, blurred Lagos skyline behind

treasury

Nigerian banks lost ₦52 billion to fraud in 2024. The CBN is shifting liability, not closing the gap.

Nigerian banks lost N52bn to fraud in 2024 and the CBN is shifting liability under the draft APP rules instead of closing the AP gap. The grammar tell that once flagged African BEC is gone. Here is the structural fix.

Half-built road at dusk in West Africa, laterite earth, incomplete tarmac, viewed from the buyer side

treasury

A Senegalese petroleum company nearly wired $7.9 million to a fraudster. The thing that stopped it was not their AP system.

INTERPOL's Operation Sentinel stopped a $7.9 million wire transfer in Senegal last November. The fraud was supplier impersonation — the exact failure mode now spreading through African construction and infrastructure payments. The AP system did not catch it. A phone call to a bank did.

Wire transfer form on a Lagos office desk with the bank account number circled in red ink

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The R5.5 million email. A South African court already wrote the AP control argument.

When an email changes a supplier's bank details, the SCA's ruling in ENS v Hawarden tells you who keeps the loss. African AP teams running single-table bank account files are carrying that legal liability today.

A dim office monitor displaying a naira fraud dashboard with a large glowing figure, evoking the tape-it-to-your-monitor metaphor

treasury

The NIBSS number every Nigerian AP manager should tape to their monitor

The AFP survey anchors US fraud conversations. In Nigeria and across Africa, that anchor is NIBSS — and the 2024 number is not what the 51%-drop headlines suggest. Here is the data an AP manager actually needs to see.