GTBank, FirstBank begin charging ₦50 on foreign transactions equivalent to ₦10,000 and above

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January 6, 2024
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2 min read
GTCO office
GTCO office; Image source: BusinessDay

The news:

  • Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) Limited informed its customers on Friday, January 5, 2024, that it will now charge a stamp duty fee of ₦50 on foreign transactions. This came a week after FirstBank sent a similar email to customers.
  • This Electronic Money Transfer (EMT) Levy shall apply to all foreign currency electronic deposits equivalent to ₦10,000 and above. 
  • This progression corresponds with the latest directive from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to Nigerian banks regarding the deductibility of the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) from foreign currency inflows.

Previously only applicable to accounts denominated in Naira, the EMT Levy is a one-time, ₦50 stamp duty fee assessed on electronic deposits of ₦10,000 and above. But going forward, GTBank and FirstBank announced that this stamp duty fee would also apply to foreign deposits of the same amount. 

Essentially, this means that each time you receive foreign currency in your GTBank or FirstBank account equal to or more than ₦10,000, the bank will deduct a stamp duty fee of ₦50.

Additionally, the FIRS mandated that banks deduct EMT Levy from qualifying transactions completed between January 2021 and the final week of December 2023. While GTBank didn’t mention this, several banks, including Access Bank and FirstBank, have said they’d do so.

It is unclear whether GTBank intends to cover these backlog charges for its customers or if it was a simple omission. 

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Remember, in September 2019, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) issued a notice about a ₦50 stamp duty that applies to point-of-sale/web merchants and all Deposit Money Banks in the country. The stamp duty only applied to transactions valued at ₦1,000 and above.

However, the Nigerian government reviewed its policy on stamp duty charges levied on electronic payments the same year, imposing a ₦50 stamp duty charge on electronic payments exceeding ₦10,000. 

In the Financial Act of 2020, the federal government amended the Stamp Duty Act and introduced the EMT Levy through the FIRS to increase the country's production of non-oil revenue. The Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocates 85% of the EMT Levy revenue to state governments and 15% to the federal government. 

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