The Central Bank of Nigeria has fined four commercial banks a total of N800 million for failing to comply with regulations prohibiting consumers from transacting in cryptocurrencies.

According to the CBN, dealing in cryptocurrency or facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchanges is prohibited.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the sanctions are part of the CBN’s efforts to tighten down on cryptocurrency, ensuring that commercial restrictions on cryptocurrency trading are in place.

The banks include Stanbic IBTC Bank, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa and Fidelity Bank.

Stanbic Bank, according to the report was fined N200 million for two accounts alleged to have been used as crypto accounts.

Access Bank was fined N500 million for failure to close customers’ crypto accounts; UBA was fined N100 million and Fidelity Bank was fined N14.3 million.

Stanbic IBTC told Bloomberg that it had followed the CBN directive but that some transactions may have passed through its system undetected.