You Blocked the Notifications. Who’s Watching Your Money?

Something happened recently that got me thinking.

I was showing some people one of our products.

Nothing serious. The normal product conversation: open the app, let me show you how this works, click here, do this, do that.

Then the app asked:

“Allow Notifications?”

The first person clicked Don't Allow.

I didn't think anything of it.

The second person did almost the same thing.

Okay.

Then another person.

By the time I got to about the fourth person, I became curious.

These people were not together. Two were friends, but the others didn't know one another.

So I asked:

“Why did you turn off the notification?”

The answer was simple.

"I don't want them disturbing me."

Ah.

Now it made sense.

And I realised this probably goes beyond these five people.

Many of us have become tired of notifications.

Buy this.

Discount that.

Someone posted something.

Someone liked something.

Your food is waiting.

Come back, we miss you.

Subscribe.

Upgrade.

Rate us.

Everybody wants our attention.

So we have developed a defence mechanism:

BLOCK EVERYTHING.

Some people don't allow notifications from new apps at all.

Some put their phone numbers on DND.

Some don't check SMS anymore.

Some have 14,736 unread emails.

And to be fair, I understand.

But there is a problem.

Not every notification is trying to sell you something.

Some notifications are trying to save your money.

Imagine this

You are at home on Saturday.

You've had a long week.

Food is beside you.

Phone is on silent.

You are seriously watching Beauty in Black on Netflix.

Meanwhile:

₦50,000 debit.

No notification.

₦200,000 debit.

Nothing.

₦500,000 debit.

You are still watching Netflix.

The villain on the television is doing her own thing.

Another villain somewhere is also doing his own thing with your bank account.

By the time you eventually open your banking app:

Available balance: ₦3,421.17

Netflix episode ends.

A completely different episode begins in your house.

😂

Suddenly, you are very available for notifications.

This is actually a serious problem

Nigeria has become an incredibly digital financial economy.

We transfer money from our phones.

We pay bills from our phones.

We open accounts from our phones.

We approve transactions from our phones.

Our phones have effectively become bank branches that we carry in our pockets.

Unfortunately, fraud followed the money.

According to figures from the Central Bank of Nigeria's Nigeria Payments System Vision 2028, attempted fraud across Nigeria's banking and payments ecosystem amounted to about ₦187.79 billion between 2020 and 2025.

Actual losses were about ₦134.48 billion.

These incidents cut across mobile banking, internet banking, e‑commerce, POS, ATMs and other electronic channels.

This is no longer small money.

And sometimes the first warning is simply an alert

Just recently, a GTBank customer told The PUNCH that ₦4.6 million was transferred from his account without his authorisation.

According to him, he didn't receive the SMS transaction alert he normally expected.

He said he only discovered what had happened later that evening when he tried to withdraw money for a family need and discovered that he had insufficient funds.

Think about that for a second.

Forget for a moment about who was responsible or how the transaction happened.

Think only about time.

If ₦1 leaves your account fraudulently, when would you rather know?

One second later?

Five minutes later?

Or six hours later?

I know my answer.

“Do Not Disturb” is good. But understand what you are blocking.

The NCC introduced DND to give Nigerians control over unsolicited messages and telemarketing.

That makes perfect sense.

Nobody wants to wake up to:

"Congratulations!!! You have been specially selected..."

Please, select somebody else.

😂

But there is an important difference between marketing communication and security communication.

One is asking for your attention.

The other may be warning you that somebody else already has your attention — or your money.

The same principle applies to app notifications.

I completely understand disabling promotional notifications from an app that sends:

"We miss you 😭"

three times a week.

I don't miss you.

Leave me alone.

But if it is my bank, fintech, investment platform, payment app or any application holding something valuable for me?

I want to know when something important happens.

Financial apps should also do better

I actually think there is a lesson here for those of us building financial products.

We have abused notifications.

When every notification becomes marketing, people learn to ignore all notifications.

If you send your customer ten useless notifications every week, don't be surprised when they switch off the one channel you need to tell them:

“A new device just logged into your account.”

Financial apps should make the distinction clearer.

Marketing notification?

Let me switch it off.

Product updates?

My choice.

Security alert?

Please disturb me.

New login?

Disturb me.

Password changed?

Disturb me.

₦500,000 just left my account?

DISTURB MY ENTIRE BLOODLINE.

I want my phone to behave like something serious just happened.

Because something serious just happened.

This is becoming even more important

The CBN has been tightening controls around digital payments.

Among its 2026 measures, banks are expected to strengthen real‑time fraud monitoring, customers can set lower personal transaction limits, and mobile banking apps are restricted to one linked device at a time, with additional restrictions when activated on a new device.

That tells us something.

Financial security is moving towards early detection and faster reaction.

And that makes sense.

Sometimes fraud prevention isn't about making it impossible for something bad to happen.

It is about detecting it quickly enough to limit the damage.

The CBN has even pushed banks towards fraud response times of less than 30 minutes.

But your bank cannot respond to the fraud with you if you discover it three days later because you have successfully achieved total peace of mind by blocking every communication channel connected to your money.

So perhaps we need a new rule

Don't turn off notifications blindly.

Instead, decide who has earned the right to disturb you.

Instagram?

Maybe not.

That shopping app that has announced the same 20% discount seventeen times?

Please rest.

The game you haven't played since 2024?

Definitely not.

But the app holding your salary?

Your savings?

Your investments?

Your property?

Your business money?

Your children's school fees?

Those ones can disturb you small.

In fact, let them disturb you.

Because there are some notifications you can afford to miss.

And there are others where five minutes can make a very expensive difference.

The next time your financial app asks:

“Allow Notifications?”

before automatically clicking Don't Allow, ask yourself one question:

If something happens to my money right now, how quickly do I want to know?

For me, the answer is simple.

Immediately.

Even if I'm watching Beauty in Black.

My Netflix can wait.

My money cannot.