Concerns are increasing over the proper implementation of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) registration of banks’ customers which is currently ongoing in Nigeria.
Mr Orji Udemezue a financial and management consultant, who was guest on Channels Television’s business programme, Business Morning, said Nigeria had not got to the point where this initiative could be successfully implemented.
According to him, the project should ride in the back of the national identity car project.
“If Nigeria had, before now, got it right in terms of National identification project through the biometric data capture, by now, it will be an easy process for the CBN to ride on the back bone of the robust data system to bring it into the financial system.
“With that we can easily translate that into the customer identification process in the banks,” he said.
Mr Udemezue said that the level of literacy in Nigeria, issue of trust, availability and security was affecting the project, but expressed optimism that the identification project would help address the issue of identification that requires individuals to produce international passport or driver’s license before they could open an account with a bank.
He, however, advised that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should put up more information for the public and ensure critical training of all stakeholders.
On February 14, the former CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, started the pilot phase of the BVN project deployment which was scheduled to run to May 31, after which full rollout to bank branches would to commence.
The Know Your Customer Initiative will help ensure accountability, check identity theft, reduce exposure to fraud, enhance credit advancement to bank customers, protect bank customers’ account from unauthorised access and also encourage financial inclusion.
