The number of people who have registered for a Bank Verification Number has risen to 60.2 million as of January 10, 2024.
This was disclosed in the most recent BVN registration data issued by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System. The BVN database reached at 59.9 million as of December 18, 2023.
According to this, between late December and early January of this year, there were roughly 300,000 new BVN registrations. While registration for the number had been slow throughout 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s recent statement that all bank accounts without a BVN would be blocked beginning in April 2024 may have contributed to an upsurge in registrations.
In December of last year, Apex Bank issued a circular directing commercial, merchant, non-interest, payment service banks, other financial institutions, and mobile money operators to electronically revalidate the BVN or National Identification Number, attached to all accounts/wallets by January 31, 2024.
The BVN database is slowly expanding. The BVN database stood at 56.5 million at the end of 2022, after 4.8 million additional registrations were reported in the year.
However, figures released close to the end of last year revealed that the database only rose by roughly 3.4 million throughout the course of the year.
According to NIBSS, the country had 133.5 million active bank accounts as of December 2021. While data for 2022 and 2023 has not yet been released, the figures are expected to be higher than that of 2021, which showed that there is still a wide gap between the registered BVN and the number of bank accounts.
In December of last year, the CBN declared that accounts without a BVN and National Identification Number would be frozen beginning in April 2024.
The central bank urged banks to impose a “Post no Debit” restriction, which stops clients from making withdrawals, transfers, or other debits “for all existing Tier-1 accounts/wallets without BVN or NIN.”
“Any unfunded account/wallet will be placed on ‘Post No Debit or Credit’ status immediately until the new process is completed.” “Effective March 1, 2024, all funded accounts or wallets will be placed on ‘Post No Debit or Credit’ and no further transactions will be permitted,” according to a circular issued by the CBN’s Director of Payments System Management Department, Chibuzo Efobi, and the Director of Financial Policy and Regulation Department, Haruna Mustapha read in part.
