BVN not linked to these accounts eight 73.8m bank accounts not linked eight years after it was mandated
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Only 54.52 million of the 128.4 million bank accounts operated in Nigeria are linked to Bank Verification Number (BVN) as of 1 May, eight years after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) mandated the linkage to check fraud.
That makes out as 73.8 million bank accounts not linked to BVN, according to data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS).
The 54.52 million linked accounts by 1 May 2022 are more than 47.54 million linked by 11 April 2021. But if linkage continues at this rate it may not meet the 100 million target the CBN set for banks by 2025.
NIBSS defines BVN as a unique identity number issued to every bank customer at enrollment and linked to every account the customer has in all banks.
Enrollment for BVN involves data capture of all 10 fingers and facial image.
Bank customers are required to enroll within a deadline after which they shall no longer be able to operate their accounts.
“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,” NIBSS said.
It designed BVN to protect bank accounts from unauthorised access, address identity theft thus reduce exposure to fraud, standardise banking operation efficiency, and enable banks to discover blacklisted customers.
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BVN background
The CBN collaborated with the Bankers’ Committee, NIBSS, and Dermalog (a German firm) to launch the $50 million BVN project on 14 February 2014 to capture the biometrics of bank customers and give them a unique identification number verifiable across the industry, per reporting by The Nation.
The CBN said increase in BVN enrollment would address the constraint that poor identification has on the availability of credit to bank customers, particularly those in the informal sector.
CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele later classified BVN into two – BVN Premium and BVN Lite.
BVN Premium covers those who provide the 18 basic requirements for a complete enrollment. BVN Lite requires minimal documentation, like name and phone number, designed especially for rural dwellers without full requirements.
He said BVN Lite would enable bank customers in the grassroots, mainly the poor, to conduct minimal financial transactions and reduce financial exclusion rate.
