Nigeria's financial regulator on Tuesday announced measures to protect consumers from excess, arbitrary or unapproved charges levied by banks and other financial institutions.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it will impose a penalty of 2 million Naira (just over $5,500) or an amount to be determined from time to time every time a financial institution imposes such charges.

Additionally, the CBN said it will impose a penalty of 2 million Naira for every day that the institutions fail to comply with the CBN's directive in respect of any infringement until that directive is met.

Furthermore, the CBN will fine banks 1 million Naira (just over $2,700) every time they fail to log a customer's complaint and provide them with a unique reference code for the complaint.

“In order to ensure that banks actually attend to every customer's complaints, CBN has directed banks to log every complaint received from their customers into the Consumer Complaints Management System (CCMS) in addition to generating a unique reference code for each complaint lodged, which must be given to the customer.”

On Friday, the CBN announced revised regulations to strengthen consumer protection with the expansion of financial inclusion and encouragement of market forces to drive pricing for financial products.

Some of the regulations saw a reduction in some bank charges, effective January 1, 2020, with the regulator noting that such moves offered huge potential for financial inclusion. One of these reductions was on cash withdrawal via other bank's ATMs from 65 Naira to 35 Naira.

The CBN has attempted to stimulate the growth of Africa’s largest economy, which has struggled to get past the effects of a recession three years ago, by getting commercial banks to lend.

However, some of these charges levied have discouraged many customers from opening accounts or using other banks’ facilities.