Not less than 60.49 million bank customers have registered for Bank Verification Number (BVN), with the recent addition of 291,232 people in the last two weeks.
The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) disclosed this. The rush is instigated by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) plan to halt bank accounts that are not linked to BVN effective from April 2024.
In a directive, the CBN directed commercial, merchant, non-interest, payment service banks, other financial institutions, and mobile money operators that the BVN or National Identification Number (NIN) attached to all accounts/wallets must be electronically revalidated by January 31.
The CBN has also placed what it called a ‘post no debit’ restriction that effectively prevents bank customers from making withdrawals, transfers or any other debits without BVN or NIN.
In a statement, NIBSS said: “Active bank accounts in the country stood at 133.5 million as of December 2021. While data for 2022 and 2023 has yet to be released, the figures are expected to be higher than that of 2021, which shows that there is still a wide gap between the registered BVN and the number of bank accounts.”
