The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has unveiled an exposure draft on the regulatory framework for banking platform to members of the public. This is part of efforts to mitigate risks by bank customers that carry out transactions through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).

The draft regulatory framework was posted on the website of the apex bank on Thursday. It pointed  out that the implementation of the system in Nigeria has created multiple USSD channels to customers, thereby increasing their exposure to risk, without common standard for all.

The proposed framework, according to the CBN, therefore seeks to establish rules and risk mitigation considerations when implementing USSD for financial services offering in Nigeria. It noted that USSD based financial transactions require end-to-end encryption to protect the integrity of the financial information.

When perfected, the rules will address vulnerabilities and mitigations, dispute resolutions and remedial measures.

The mobile phone has become a verifiable tool for enhancing financial inclusion with the advent of mobile payments, m-commerce, m-banking and other implementation financial transactions based on mobile money.