Financial institutions are required by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to collect the social media handles of their clients to identify them.

In addition, the apex bank requested that financial institutions get residential addresses, residential phone numbers, and email addresses from clients.

The mandate was part of the new CBN customer due diligence standards, which the organization claimed were designed to bolster the banking system's identification procedure.

The paper describing the CBN's (Customer Due Diligence) Regulations, 2023, was posted on the website on Friday.

The CBN claims that the new law was created to give financial institutions that fall within its regulatory scope extra customer due diligence requirements.

While stating the objective of the regulations, the CBN said it is “To provide additional customer due diligence measures for financial institutions under the regulatory purview of the Central Bank of Nigeria to further their compliance with relevant provisions of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act (MLPPA), 2022, Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act (TPPA), 2022, Central Bank of Nigeria (Anti-Money Laundering, Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Countering Proliferation Financing of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Financial Institutions) Regulations, 2022 (CBN AML, CFT and CPF Regulations) and international best practices.

“And enable the CBN to enforce compliance with customer due diligence measures in line with the CBN AML, CFT and CPF Regulations.”

Financial institutions are not allowed to create or maintain anonymous accounts, accounts with sequential numbers, or accounts with false identities, according to the Apex Bank.