The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), has revealed that the number of active bank accounts in Nigeria rose to 231.1 million in July 2024.
Previous NIBSS data showed that active bank accounts in the country stood at 202.6 million at the end of 2023.
This shows that a total of 28.5 million accounts were activated between January and July 2024.
According to NIBSS, the number of inactive or dormant bank accounts in the country stood at 18.9 million, an increase from the 18.06 million it stood at as at the end of 2023.
Similarly, the NIBSS data shows that the number of bank accounts that have been closed stood at 23.3 million.
This shows that about 1.9 million accounts have been closed this year as the number of closed bank accounts was 21.2 million as of December 2023.
Meanwhile, the number of active bank accounts in the country as of July shows that there is still a very wide gap between the number of accounts and the number of Bank Verification Numbers (BVN), which is now a compulsory requirement for opening an account.
The NIBSS database shows that total registered BVNs by account owners stood at 62.7 million as of the same July 2024.
However, industry analysts believe that the difference may not be much given that multiple accounts can be linked to a single BVN.
