By Christian George
The Central Bank of Nigeria has placed an e-payment ban on the Biometric Verification Number of not fewer than 572 bank customers for fraud related issues.
This was made known by the Deputy Director, Payment System Department, Adewuyi Adeyemi during the 34th CBN seminar for finance correspondents and business editors in Calabar, Cross Rivers State.
He explained that these bank customers on the apex bank’s watchlist have been banned from the e-payment system.
He added that they can only conduct banking transactions by visiting the bank branch where their account is domiciled.
According to a report by Vanguard, the apex bank
said it will soon audit the nation’s payment system in order to cope with future growth in electronic banking transactions.
It was noted that the essence of the audit was to address the incessant failed transactions witnessed by bank customers as well as reposition the nation’s e-banking system.
He noted that the spike during COVID-19 and redesigned naira has taught the apex bank a lesson and moves have been made to close infrastructural gaps.
He said, “In the last four years we have had a spike in transactions twice. First time was during COVID and January this year, during the currency redesign. Actually there are advantages and disadvantages to that spike in volume.
“The same thing happened this year. I can say we were actually not ready for the spike in volume we experienced during the naira redesign. That is one of the reasons why we decided internally that this year we should actually conduct an infrastructure audit based on the principle of Financial Market Infrastructure which is an international standard.
“The audit will give us an opportunity to benchmark our maturity level against international standards. That way we will be able to identify gaps in our infrastructure that we need to close if you really want to be there.”
