73.8m bank accounts not linked to BVN, says report

06 May 73.8m bank accounts not linked to BVN, says report

Data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) shows that Bank accounts not linked to Bank Verification Number (BVN) are  73.8 million.

Of the 128.4 million bank accounts in the country, 54.52 million accounts are linked to BVN as at May 1, this year, according to data from NIBSS.

This was an improvement from 47.54 million BVN-linked accounts position as at April 11, last year.

The NIBSS data, however, fell short of the 100 million BVN-linked account

target set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for deposit money banks by

year-end 2025.

According to NIBSS, BVN is a unique identity number issued to every bank customer at enrollment and linked to every account that the customer has in the banks.

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.

“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.

Continuing, NIBSS said 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 giving them a unique identity that can be verified across the industry.