As the deadline for the Bank Verification Number enrollment for Diaspora bank customer elapsed January 31, the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) said that the exercise would continue to run.
The Managing Director of NIBSS, Adebisi Shonubi, who disclosed this to Daily Sun in a telephone conversation yesterday, said that the continuation of enrolment of bank customers in the Diaspora would enable them use the BVN for the opening of accounts for their children.
According to him, the registration for customers in the Diaspora is ongoing as it will enable parents open accounts for their children, which they will maintain for them until they are of age to run the accounts themselves.
The CBN had last year November extended the deadline for the registration to January 31, 2016, after the October 31 deadline for local customers.
This, according to the Director of Corporate Communications at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Ibrahim Mu’Azu, was to enable customers in the Diaspora to complete the enrollment exercise as well as link the BVN with their respective accounts.
Meanwhile, the number of enrolled customers had risen from 20.8 million as at October 31, 2015, Nigerian to 23.18 million as at yesterday.
Henceforth, bank accounts without BVN at home and overseas will no longer be operated as a no customers initiated debit until the account holders obtain and attach BVNs to the accounts. This means that a customer may not be allowed to withdraw money from his or her account until the BVN has been acquired and linked to the account.
This is aimed at revolutionising the payment system in the country as the BVN captures bank customers’ biometrics, which is electronic verification tools for online and mobile banking that offer unique customer identification, giving unchangeable identification that helps in Know Your Customer (KYC) principle. It is expected to curb fraud within the banking system and also boost lending.