Nigeria’s suspicious bank transaction reports fall 49% to 42,082 in 2025

Whenever significant amounts of money move between banks in Nigeria, there should be oversight. This is the responsibility of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), which receives reports from banks, fintechs, insurance companies, cryptocurrency platforms, and other entities handling large financial transactions. The NFIU uses this information to track money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes.

In 2025, the NFIU received 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports from financial institutions across the country. While this figure seems substantial, it is important to note that the number of reports in 2024 was 82,143. This means that in just one year, the volume of suspicious transaction reports filed by Nigerian financial institutions dropped by nearly 49%.

Simultaneously, Currency Transaction Reports, routine disclosures triggered when banks report transactions exceeding a certain amount, rose dramatically by 61.6%. These reports increased from 25.8 million in 2024 to 41.7 million in 2025.

This trend indicates an increase in the amount of money being monitored, but a decline in the number of transactions flagged as suspicious. This situation could either be very encouraging or raise some important questions that need to be addressed.

What banks, fintechs and crypto platforms reported to the NFIU in 2025

To understand the importance of these reports, it’s helpful to know what each type represents.

A Currency Transaction Report (CTR) is automatically generated whenever someone moves over ₦5 million, or a company moves over ₦10 million. This is just a record of large transactions, reflecting trends like inflation and currency depreciation. The increase in CTRs to 41.7 million in 2025 indicates more large transactions in Nigeria.

On the other hand, a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) requires a human or automated system to evaluate a transaction and determine if something seems off, such as unusual patterns or unexplained transfers. This involves judgment and is more complex.

The sharp decline in STRs from 2024 to 2025 could mean several things. There might be genuinely fewer suspicious activities, which is hard to believe given the known financial crimes. It could also mean institutions are underreporting due to insufficient compliance systems or the desire to avoid the hassle of flagging suspicious transactions. Alternatively, it could reflect changes in regulations that influence what institutions feel they need to report.

The NFIU suggests that the drop in STRs is due to improved compliance measures and reforms. For example, the CBN’s new framework from May 2025 suggested using AI for better transaction monitoring, which might have enhanced detection quality, even if the number of reports decreased. Essentially, it could mean better targeting rather than less scrutiny.

We’ll only know how accurate this explanation is once the financial crime prosecution data is updated alongside the reporting data.

Read also: Fintech engineers, others explain why banks are to blame for most failed transactions – survey

The breakdown of who filed what tells its own story.

In 2025, Deposit Money Banks, like GTBank and Access Bank, filed 92% of all Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs), which amounted to 38,715 out of 42,082. This shows they have strong compliance systems and face significant regulatory pressure.

In contrast, fintech companies and other financial institutions filed only 2,185 STRs, which seems low considering the high transaction volume in the fintech sector. For example, Opay handles over 100 million transactions each day, raising concerns about whether fintech compliance is keeping up.

Meanwhile, crypto platforms filed just 49 STRs for the entire year. This is surprisingly low given the government’s efforts to regulate the industry. The data indicates that crypto platforms only began submitting Currency Transaction Reports in the latter half of 2025, suggesting that their compliance efforts are still in the early stages, despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s focus on crypto regulations.

Banks filed 28.1 million politically exposed person reports

One overlooked aspect of this report is the count of Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) disclosures. In 2025, Nigerian financial institutions filed 28.1 million PEP reports, a 31% increase from 21.5 million the previous year.

A PEP is someone who holds, or has held, a prominent public position, as well as certain family members and close associates. Financial institutions are required to apply enhanced scrutiny to their financial activity because of the higher corruption and money-laundering risks associated with some public positions.

These 28 million reports indicate that Nigerian banks are flagging a large number of transactions tied to politically connected individuals. It’s unclear whether this high volume reflects true vigilance or simply a routine exercise. However, given Nigeria’s population of around 220 million, this suggests a substantial proportion of financial activity is linked to these individuals.

This detail, more than anything else in the report, merits discussion, yet it is largely absent from the conversation. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s proposed AI-driven anti-money laundering (AML) framework aims to enhance real-time transaction monitoring, behavioural pattern recognition, risk scoring, and automated reporting of suspicious transactions. If implemented effectively, it could replace or support human judgment in identifying potentially suspicious activities, allowing for better detection of anomalies that might otherwise be overlooked.

This shift has broader implications. It could make it increasingly difficult to conceal financial crimes within the volume of legitimate transactions, assuming the systems are used correctly and the data they produce is acted upon.

With 42,082 suspicious transactions flagged, 41.7 million currency reports filed, and 28 million PEP disclosures made, it’s clear that Nigeria’s financial surveillance system is operational. However, the NFIU’s annual report leaves unanswered a crucial question: What becomes of the transactions that were identified but not flagged? That missing information is what truly matters.

Also read: All CBN’s Directives in H1 2026 and how they affected banks and fintechs