Prembly, a Nigerian identity verification and compliance infrastructure company, has convened senior figures from across Nigeria’s financial ecosystem at an exclusive roundtable in Lagos, bringing together banks, fintechs, insurers, telecoms companies, regulators, and cybersecurity professionals to address what the company describes as one of the most pressing and undercoordinated threats facing the Nigerian economy: the growing sophistication and scale of digital fraud.
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Why the conversation is urgent
The Nigerian financial services sector lost approximately N52.26 billion to fraud in 2024 according to data from the Financial Institutions Training Centre, with digital channels accounting for the overwhelming majority of cases. The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System reported 153,923 fraud incidents in the same year, reflecting a 40 per cent increase from 2023 as fraudsters adapted to the rapid growth of digital payment adoption.
For Nigerian SMEs, the fraud problem is not abstract. Businesses that process payments through digital platforms, issue invoices electronically, and manage staff expenses through mobile tools are directly exposed to the same vulnerabilities that have cost financial institutions billions. Fake payment alerts, identity fraud, business email compromise, and unauthorised account access are among the most commonly reported threats to small business finances.
Nigeria’s financial system has spent a decade building the rails for digital inclusion. Fraud is now exploiting those same rails at scale. The question the Prembly roundtable is asking is whether the institutions that built the system are coordinating well enough to defend it.
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What the roundtable addressed
Prembly CEO Lanre Ogungbe described the initiative as a call to action, noting that the sophistication of fraudsters today demands an equally sophisticated, coordinated, and intelligence-driven response from the financial services industry. The roundtable brought together participants from Access Bank, Zenith Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Guaranty Trust Bank, First City Monument Bank, Moniepoint, FairMoney, MTN, Airtel, Standard Alliance Insurance, NIBSS, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, among others.
The central theme of the discussions was the case for moving from siloed institutional defences to a shared, intelligence-driven fraud prevention framework — one where information about emerging fraud patterns is shared across institutions faster than fraudsters can exploit the gaps between them. Ogungbe cited the contrast between the fragmented current state and the coordinated response required to address threats that do not respect institutional boundaries.
Prembly’s own infrastructure — including its Radar anti-fraud tool, Bvnverify identity service, and global AML screening capabilities — was presented as part of the technical layer through which such a coordinated defence could be built.
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What it means for businesses and consumers
A more coordinated anti-fraud infrastructure across Nigeria’s financial system has direct benefits for the small businesses and consumers that interact with it daily. Fewer fraudulent transactions mean faster payment processing, lower chargebacks, reduced insurance costs, and a more trustworthy digital commerce environment — conditions that make it easier and cheaper to run a business digitally.
Nigeria’s digital economy is growing. The institutions defending it are capable. What the Prembly roundtable is arguing is that those institutions working in parallel is no longer sufficient — and that the next frontier in financial inclusion is not just reaching more people with digital tools, but ensuring those tools are secure enough to trust with a livelihood.
