morganable business/banking& Fintech
The NFIU said its reporting system covers threshold-based transaction disclosures, suspicious transactions and activities, as well as regulatory submissions relating to anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing and counter-proliferation financing compliance.
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Banks, fintech companies and other reporting entities submitted 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit in 2025, as regulators intensified efforts to strengthen the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing framework.
The figure is contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, which provides an overview of reporting activities across Nigeria’s financial and designated non-financial sectors during the year.
According to the report, the agency received 41,716,214 Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs), 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) and 10,513 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in 2025.
The NFIU said its reporting system covers threshold-based transaction disclosures, suspicious transactions and activities, as well as regulatory submissions relating to anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing and counter-proliferation financing compliance.
NFIU Working With Regulatory Agencies
The agency works with regulators including the Central Bank of Nigeria, National Insurance Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering to ensure that reporting entities meet their statutory obligations.
Deposit Money Banks remained by far the largest source of suspicious transaction reports during the year.
Other Financial Institutions accounted for 2,185 reports, while Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions submitted 1,029.
Capital market operators and insurance companies collectively filed 104 reports, while Virtual Asset Service Providers, including cryptocurrency-related businesses, submitted 49 suspicious transaction reports.
Other Financial Institutions submitted 1,816 SARs, while capital market and insurance companies filed 295.
Virtual Asset Service Providers accounted for 89 reports, while no Suspicious Activity Report was recorded from the DNFBP sector during the year.
The NFIU report also showed the enormous volume of threshold-based transactions passing through the financial system.
41.7 Million Currency Transaction Reports Received
Of the 41.7 million Currency Transaction Reports received in 2025, Deposit Money Banks accounted for 37,214,139, representing approximately 89.2 per cent of the total.
Other Financial Institutions submitted 4,212,466 reports, while capital market and insurance companies filed 289,296. Virtual Asset Service Providers recorded 313 CTRs.
The NFIU said these disclosures are required under the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act.
It explained that Section 11 of the Act requires financial institutions to report transactions above N5m involving individuals and N10m involving legal persons within seven days.
The law also requires financial institutions to report incoming and outgoing transfers exceeding $10,000 within 24 hours under Section 3(1).
The quarterly figures indicated that suspicious transaction reporting by banks increased steadily during the year.
Deposit Money Banks filed 9,134 STRs in the first quarter, with the figure rising to 9,658 in the second quarter and 9,891 in the third quarter before reaching 10,032 in the fourth quarter.
The increase suggests that banks maintained an increasingly active reporting regime as the year progressed.
Currency Transaction Reports filed by Deposit Money Banks also recorded substantial quarterly growth.
The banks submitted 7,040,493 CTRs in the first quarter, 8,197,292 in the second quarter, 10,885,247 in the third quarter and 11,091,107 in the fourth quarter.
The reporting trend among Other Financial Institutions was less consistent.
Their STR filings stood at 451 in the first quarter and 432 in the second quarter before increasing to 719 in the third quarter and falling to 583 in the fourth quarter.
Suspicious Activity Reports from the sector rose from 453 in the first quarter to 569 in the third quarter before declining to 399 in the final quarter.
The NFIU also recorded increased reporting activity among Virtual Asset Service Providers, reflecting the growing regulatory attention being paid to digital assets and cryptocurrency-related transactions.
VASPs filed no STRs in the first half of 2025 but submitted 17 in the third quarter and 32 in the fourth quarter.
Their Suspicious Activity Reports stood at 28 in the first quarter, 12 in the second, 24 in the third and 25 in the fourth quarter.
Currency Transaction Reports from VASPs also emerged only in the second half of the year, with 103 filed in the third quarter and 210 in the fourth.
Another significant category in the NFIU’s reporting system was politically exposed persons.
The agency received 28,133,909 Politically Exposed Persons reports during the year, with Deposit Money Banks again accounting for the overwhelming majority.
Banks filed 7,263,557 PEP reports in the first quarter, 5,658,079 in the second, 6,235,585 in the third and 8,225,572 in the fourth quarter.
Other Financial Institutions recorded a particularly sharp increase, moving from just 12 PEP reports in the first quarter to 617,286 in the fourth quarter.
Capital market and insurance institutions filed 28,561 reports during the year, while no PEP reports were recorded from VASPs.
The NFIU also disclosed enforcement and compliance-monitoring activities undertaken during 2025.
Its Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions Division conducted joint on-site examinations of 29 reporting entities operating in sectors including real estate, casinos, dealers in precious metals and stones, and consultancy within the Federal Capital Territory.
Despite the high level of reporting activity, the NFIU recorded a sharp year-on-year decline in suspicious transaction and suspicious activity reports.
STRs fell from 82,143 in 2024 to 42,082 in 2025, representing a decline of approximately 48.8 per cent.
Suspicious Activity Reports also dropped from 23,364 to 10,513, a reduction of about 55 per cent.
The decline contrasted sharply with the increase in Currency Transaction Reports.
CTRs rose by 15,896,495, from 25,819,719 in 2024 to 41,716,214 in 2025, representing an increase of about 61.6 per cent.
PEP reports also increased by 6,667,621, rising from 21,466,288 in 2024 to 28,133,909 in 2025, equivalent to a 31.1 per cent increase.
The contrasting figures point to a significant change in the pattern of regulatory reporting across Nigeria’s financial system.
While threshold-based transaction and politically exposed person disclosures increased substantially, reports specifically identifying transactions or activities as suspicious declined considerably.
The development comes as financial regulators seek to modernise Nigeria’s anti-money laundering architecture in response to increasing digitalisation and more sophisticated financial crime methods.
In May 2025, the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a draft framework aimed at strengthening AML practices across regulated financial institutions through greater use of automated and intelligent systems.
The proposed standards were designed to improve transaction monitoring, detection accuracy and regulatory compliance while aligning Nigeria’s financial system with international frameworks, including those developed by the Financial Action Task Force.
Under the proposed regime, financial institutions would be required to deploy intelligent AML systems capable of monitoring transactions in real time and detecting unusual patterns.
The systems are expected to incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to support behavioural analysis, risk scoring and adaptive detection of potentially suspicious transactions.
Such capabilities are increasingly important as financial transactions become more digital and complex, particularly with the expansion of fintech services, cross-border transfers and virtual assets.
For the NFIU and other regulators, the challenge will be to ensure that increased reporting translates into effective identification and disruption of illicit financial flows.
