The Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) has revealed that bank accounts not linked to Bank Verification Number (BVN) have reached 73.8 million.
BVN is a unique identity number issued to every bank customer at enrollment and linked to every account that the customer has in the bank. Bank customers are required to enroll within a fixed period after which they shall no longer be able to operate their bank accounts, and entails capturing of all 10 fingers and facial image.
Data from the NIBSS showed that of the 128.4 million bank accounts in the country, 54.52 million accounts have been linked to BVN as at May 1, 2022.
This, the NIBSS said, was an improvement from 47.54 million BVN-linked accounts position as at April 11, 2021.
In spite the improvement, the number falls short of the 100 million BVN-linked account target set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for deposit money banks by the end of 2025.
Explaining the BVN, NIBSS said “For authentication, individuals performing banking transactions (e.g applying for loans) shall be required to identify themselves using their biometric features which will be matched against information in the central database.”
It further pointed out that with BVN, customers’ bank accounts are protected from unauthorised access, will address issues of identity theft, thus reduce exposure to fraud, standardise efficiency of banking operations and enhance the banking industry chances of being able to fish out blacklisted customers.
The CBN, in collaboration with the Bankers’ Committee, NIBSS, and a German firm, Dermalog, launched the $50 million BVN project on February 14, 2014, to capture biometrics of bank customers and give them a unique identity that can be verified across the industry.
The apex bank said increase in BVN enrollment would address the constraint that poor identification has on the availability of credit to prospective banking customers, particularly, those in the informal sector.
The Bankers’ Committee also unveiled a plan that required classification of BVN into two – BVN Premium and BVN Lite.
