Stephanie Douse 
The Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN) has sanctioned and fined three commercial banks, Access Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, and Stanbic IBTC Bank a total of N800 million for failing to comply with regulations prohibiting customers from trading in cryptocurrencies.
The sanctions are part of the CBN’s efforts to crack down on cryptocurrency and ensure that commercial controls on cryptocurrency trading are in place, according to reports. It was also disclosed that the CBN has the ability to detect bitcoin transactions that may have gone unnoticed by commercial banks.
Access Bank Plc, the country’s largest lender by assets, was fined N500 million for neglecting to close down customers’ crypto accounts, according to the article.
For a customer’s digital-currency transactions, United Bank for Africa Plc was fined N100 million naira.
Stanbic IBTC Bank, a local unit of Standard Bank Group Ltd., was fined N200 million by the CBN for two accounts that were allegedly used for cryptocurrency transactions.
While Stanbic IBTC fulfilled the central bank’s regulations, the transactions for which it was sanctioned may have passed through its system undetected, according to Wole Adeniyi, Chief Executive Officer of Stanbic IBTC, during an investor conference call in Lagos.