27/04/2026
I’ve seen financially strong companies default without a single financial warning sign.
Most finance teams are underwriting the wrong risk.
Everyone is mostly focused on three things:
1. Credit risk
2. Collateral value
3. Cashflow strength
But there’s a silent risk sitting inside almost every deal—and it’s not being priced in.
Cyber risk.
Here’s what I’m seeing across SMEs and asset-backed financing in Nigeria:
A company can have:
-Strong revenues
-Solid assets
-Clean financials
…and still become a non-performing exposure overnight.
Not because of the market.
Not because of mismanagement.
But because of a single cyber incident.
• Ransomware locks operations for 5–10 days
• Payment systems go down
• Customer data gets compromised
• Reputation takes a hit
• Cashflow stops
From a lender’s perspective, that’s not an IT issue.
That’s a credit event.
The uncomfortable truth:
Most financing structures today do NOT account for:
• Operational downtime risk
• Data breach exposure
• System vulnerability in revenue generation
Yet these are now direct drivers of repayment capacity.
What this means going forward:
If you are:
• A lender
• A leasing company
• A credit committee member
Then cybersecurity is no longer a “nice-to-have checklist.”
It should be part of:
- Due diligence
- Risk pricing
- Deal structuring
Simple shift. Big impact.
Start asking:
• How dependent is this business on digital systems?
• What happens if systems go down for 72 hours?
• Is there any cyber resilience in place?
Because the real question is not:
“Can they repay?”
It’s:
“Can they still operate under stress?”
The firms that understand this early will:
1.Price risk better
2.Avoid invisible NPLs
3. Build stronger portfolios
Everyone else will learn it the expensive way.
If you're structuring deals in today’s environment, this is a conversation worth having.
https://selar.com/digitalresponkit
