Nigerian government fines Fidelity Bank N555.8 million for customer data breach

The National Data Protection Commission (NDP) on Wednesday announced that it has imposed a fine of N555.8 million on Fidelity Bank.

Tier one bank fined for breaches related to customer data breach.

The announcement was made by NDP National Commissioner, Vincent Olatunji, at the Validation Workshop on the Implementation Directions and General Implementation of the Nigerian Data Protection Act held in Abuja.

According to him, the first-tier bank violated the NDP Act of 2023 and the NDPR of 2019 on data breaches, and the fine imposed on the bank was 0.1 percent of its annual gross income in 2023.

He further noted that Fidelity Bank’s fine was the highest ever issued, adding that it was compounded by the bank’s arrogance and poor cooperation during its investigation.

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Olatunji said, “Compliance with data protection is important and we have stated that violations will attract sanctions. We have sanctions ranging from N10 million or up to two percent of the gross revenue of the previous year.

“But our approach is to create awareness and tell people what we should be doing and in most breaches, we try to look at the level of the breach, the impact and the number of data subjects affected, as well as the level of cooperation by the organisations involved at the cost of remuneration.

“Since we started, the major fine we imposed yesterday (Tuesday) was on Fidelity Bank. For violation of the NDP Act 2023 and the NDPR Act 2019, we imposed a fine of N555.8 million and they must pay. We have observed serious violations and we have been working with them, investigating the matter since April 2023. However, when we concluded our findings, they became arrogant and we decided to impose the full fine on them, which is about 0.1 per cent of their revenue for the year 2023.

“This payment must be made within 14 days of receipt of this Notice,” he added.

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