BREAKING NEWS, Business
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The Nigeria Interbank Settlement System is partnering major telecommunication companies to enhance bank verification number registration exercise as 8.6 million people are yet to comply
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Sep 28, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE Nigeria Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, has gone into partnership with major telecommunication companies in Nigeria to enhance the registration of the Bank Verification Number, BVN. Ade Shonubi, managing director, NIBSS, at a media briefing in Lagos, said the partnership was to encourage more Nigerians to enrol for the BVN. He said the partnership was about convenience for those with BVN.
Shonubi disclosed that about 20 million bank customer now have their BVN implying that 8.6 million customers are yet to obtain their BVN. Data obtained by the Enhancing Financial Innovation Access, an organisation committed to financial inclusion, showed that there are about 28.6 million adult bank accounts in Nigeria.
He said: “For those of us who are not aware of the objective of the BVN, there are three major cardinal objectives: First of all, it is to assist the banking industry with Know-Your-Customer, KYC, services. So, it will help them in verifying the people who come to open an account. Secondly, it is to help the industry to give some form of comfort to people who want to take credit and thirdly, we want to be able to identify fraudsters and put them in their place. We should be able to blacklist them and ensure that they don’t come back to the industry.
“Specifically, the advantage is that if a customer who has account numbers with four or five banks can’t remember the account numbers, with just your BVN, you can access any of all those banks. Secondly, we believe there would be bank agnostic services that will come up soon where it doesn’t matter which bank you are banking with such that once you have your BVN, you will access from all those banks. Thirdly, the issue of having to remember pass words, pin and all that will not matter because if I have a BVN, it should be able to verify me.”
Speaking on the partnership, Francesco Anjelone, chief marketing officer, Etisalat, said, “We believe that innovation in the direction of banking services is the way telecoms industry has to go. Integration of telecommunications with banks is a pillar for development. Etisalat is more than happy to have other telecoms companies joining the partnership because as soon as we have the critical mass and everybody is on top of it there would be a creation of value for both industries.”
Also, Afolake Ogunbajo, senior manager, Airtel Nigeria, said, “Airtel is very excited to partner with NIBSS on this special project and we promise that the service would go live on Airtel network by Wednesday.”
The partnership allows bank customers that had enrolled for the BVN to use their telephone number to request for their BVN from NIBSS at any time by dialling the code *565*0#, on any of the telecommunications network. But only the telephone number(s) submitted by the bank customers during the enrolment for the BVN can be used to access the service. Presently, only Etisalat and Airtel Nigeria render the service. While Etisalat has since gone live on the service, Airtel assured that from this Wednesday, September 16, its subscribers would be able to benefit from the service.
The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, had on June 30, extended the deadline for BVN registration to October 31. The apex bank had earlier fixed June 30, as deadline for the exercise, warning that defaulters may not be able to access to their accounts. As the deadline approaches again, millions of customers are yet to enrol into the scheme.
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