Enrollments for the Bank Verification Number (BVN) by bank account owners in the country has increased to 63.4 million this September.
This was revealed by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) in its BVN data just released. Previous data released by the organization showed that the enrollment database stood at 62.7 million in July.
This indicates that a total of 750,048 account owners have registered for the BVN in the last two months.
As of December 2023, the total registered BVN stood at 60 million, according to NIBSS data. This suggests that the database has grown by 3.4 million so far this year.
Meanwhile, the number of active bank accounts in the country shows that there is still a very wide gap between the number of accounts and the number of BVN, which is now a compulsory requirement for opening an account.
A BVN is a unique number that allows individual accounts to be verified across the Nigerian banking industry.
The unique ID number is issued to every bank customer at enrolment and linked to every account that the customer has at all Nigerian banks. According to NIBSS, the BVN gives bank account owners a unique identity that can be verified across the Nigerian banking industry, while it ensures that customers’ bank accounts are protected from unauthorized access.
According to the recent directives from the CBN, every financial account, including that of fintechs, must now be linked with BVN before it can be operational.