The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) is mobilising banks, fintechs, insurance companies and other private-sector players to co-design a Joint Financial Intelligence Collaboration (JFIC) platform aimed at combating illicit financial flows.
The development followed a high-level stakeholder engagement in Abuja, where the NFIU, with support from the British High Commission and the Convention for Business Integrity (CBI), brought together regulators and industry operators.
The proposed JFIC is expected to provide a trusted framework for public and private institutions to share financial intelligence, identify emerging threats and disrupt illicit financial networks.
Representing the NFIU Chief Executive Officer, Hafsat Abubakar Bakari, the Unit’s General Counsel, Felix Obiamalu, said the initiative had moved beyond discussions to the design and implementation stage.
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“We have moved from dialogue to design, to commitment and implementation.”
Obiamalu said stakeholders were expected to jointly determine how the partnership would operate, the value it would create and how it could be sustained.
The Illicit Financial Flows Officer at the British High Commission, Jehanzeb Khan, stressed the importance of stronger cooperation between government and the private sector in tackling illicit financial flows.
The Managing Director of the Convention for Business Integrity, Olusoji Apampa, said the process was deliberately designed to give the private sector a central role in shaping the framework, ensuring that it reflected realities on the ground and secured broad stakeholder ownership.
In her keynote presentation, former Chair of the Egmont Group and former Director of South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre, Xolisile Khanyile, described private-sector participation as a national responsibility.
Khanyile urged Nigeria to adopt a practical and phased approach to implementing the initiative, stressing that trust, shared ownership and collaboration were critical to successful public-private partnerships.
She said the initiative was timely, given Nigeria’s strategic position within the global Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework.
The engagement ended with stakeholders expressing support for the proposed JFIC framework and a commitment to strengthening intelligence-sharing and early detection of financial threats.
The NFIU said the initiative reflected the growing need for government and industry to work together as financial crimes become increasingly sophisticated and cross-border.
