The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has said the number of active bank accounts in Nigeria rose to 311.6 million in December 2024.
This data shows that there was a significant increase from 2023 when the number of active accounts was 202.6 million.
This indicates that a total of 106 million new accounts were opened or reactivated between January and December last year.
The data further showed that the number of inactive or dormant bank accounts in the country was 19.5 million, indicating a 7.9 per cent increase in the number of abandoned accounts year-on-year as the figure was 18.06 million at the end of 2023.
The NIBSS data further shows that the number of bank accounts that have been closed stood at 25.5 million, indicating that about 4.3 million bank accounts were closed in the year as the number of closed bank accounts was 21.2 million as of December 2023.
The number of active bank accounts in the country as of December 2024 shows a 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 64.8 million as of January 2025.
