This page provides AWS financial institution customers with information about the legal and regulatory requirements in Nigeria that may apply to their use of AWS services. 

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Regulations

  • Yes. Financial institutions in Nigeria are permitted to use cloud services, provided that they comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements, such as those described below. 

  • The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) regulates and supervises banks and other financial institutions, and operators within the electronic payments network in Nigeria.

    The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) regulates and supervises the insurance sector.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the regulatory organization for the capital markets with the power to regulate the investments and securities business in Nigeria, as well as, registering and regulating various securities and commodity exchanges including, the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

  • Financial Institutions in Nigeria may be subject to a number of different legal and regulatory requirements when they use cloud services.

    Legislation and relevant guidelines issued by CBN together with the NAICOM, SEC and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), provide a framework for financial institutions in Nigeria when they are planning to use cloud services. Key legislation and guidelines include the following:

    The above framework covers a variety of contractual and operational areas, including due diligence, risk management, business continuity, and monitoring and oversight.

    Regulations are changing rapidly in this space, and AWS is consistently monitoring development of new and draft regulations. Customers that have questions about the applicable regulations, and how these may apply to their use of AWS services, can reach out to their account representative.

    AWS encourages its financial institutions customers to obtain appropriate advice on their compliance with all regulatory and legal requirements that are relevant to their business, including other local regulations, guidelines and laws. In this way AWS customers can proactively respond to new rules and guidelines.

  • AWS is committed to offering customers a strong compliance framework and advanced tools and security measures which they can leverage to help evaluate and support their compliance needs.

    Financial institutions who are using or planning to use AWS services can take the following steps to better understand their compliance needs:

    1. Consider the purpose of the workload(s) under consideration and the relevant categories of data in order to anticipate which legal and regulatory requirements may apply.

    2. Assess the materiality or criticality of the relevant workload(s) in light of local requirements. For example, financial institutions subject to the Nigeria Financial Services Industry Information Technology Standards Blueprint (2019) must adhere to the minimum IT Standards prescribed therein.

    3. Review the AWS Shared Responsibility Model and map AWS responsibilities and customer responsibilities according to each AWS service that will be used. Customers can also use AWS Artifact to access AWS’s audit reports and conduct their assessment of the control responsibilities.

    4. Customers who have further questions about how AWS services can enable their security and compliance needs, or who would like more information, can contact their account representative.

  • Financial institutions in Nigeria using AWS should also consider applicable privacy requirements, including the Nigeria Data Protection Bill (2022) and the Consumer Protection Framework issued by the CBN.

    The AWS whitepaper Using AWS in the Context of Common Privacy and Data Protection Considerations provides useful information to customers using AWS cloud services to store or process personal data.

    If customers process or are planning to process the personal data of data subjects in the European Union (EU), they should visit AWS’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Center. More information on these requirements is included in Navigating GDPR Compliance on AWS.

Resources

  • General
  • Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) 3.2.1 on AWS

    This guide provides customers with sufficient information to be able to plan for and document the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance of their AWS workloads. This includes the selection of controls that meet specific PCI DSS 3.2.1 requirements, planning of evidence gathering to meet assessment testing procedures, and explaining their control implementation to their PCI Qualified Security Assessor (QSA).

    AWS Compliance Quick Reference Guide

    AWS has many compliance-enabling features that you can use for your regulated workloads in the AWS cloud. These features allow you to achieve a higher level of security at scale. Cloud-based compliance offers a lower cost of entry, easier operations, and improved agility by providing more oversight, security control, and central automation.

    AWS Operational Resilience

    The purpose of this paper is to describe how AWS and our customers in the financial services industry achieve operational resilience using AWS services.

    Data Classification and Secure Cloud Adoption

    This paper provides insight into classification schemes for public and private organizations to leverage when moving data to the cloud. It identifies practices and models currently implemented by global first movers and early adopters, examines how implementation of these schemes can simplify cloud adoption, and recommends practices to harmonize national requirements to internationally recognized standards and frameworks.

    AWS Policy Perspectives: Data Residency

    This paper addresses: The real and perceived security risks expressed by governments when they demand in-country data residency. Commercial, public sector, and economic impact of in-country data residency policies with a focus on government data. Considerations for governments to evaluate before enforcing requirements that can unintentionally limit public sector digital transformation goals leading to increased cybersecurity risk.

    AWS Risk and Compliance

    This document is intended to provide information to assist AWS customers with integrating AWS into their existing control framework supporting their IT environment. This document includes a basic approach to evaluating AWS controls and provides information to assist customers with integrating control environments. This document also addresses AWS-specific information around general cloud computing compliance questions.

    AWS Security Audit Guidelines

    Guidelines for systematically reviewing and monitoring your AWS resources for security best practices.

    Financial Services Lens - AWS Well Architected Framework

    Describes general design principles, as well as specific best practices and guidance for the five pillars of the Well-Architected Framework.

    AWS Logical Separation Handbook

    The paper discusses using a multi-pronged approach—for example, leveraging virtualization, encryption, and programmatic policies—to build logical security mechanisms that meet and often exceed the security results of physical separation and other on-premises security approaches. Public sector and commercial organizations worldwide can leverage these mechanisms to more confidently migrate sensitive workloads to the cloud without the need for physically dedicated infrastructure.

  • Compliance Programs

  • CSA

    ISO 27018

    ISO 9001

    GDPR

    ISO 27001

    PCI DSS Level 1

    ISO 27017

    SOC

Review requirements

We are continually adapting to evolving regulations. Check often for updates.

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