Nigerians on social media have expressed mixed feelings about the directives by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) mandating bank account holders to link their accounts to Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) and National Identity Numbers (NINs) for all bank transactions beginning March next year.
The apex bank said in a circular signed by its Director of Payment System Management Department, Chibuzo Efomi and the Director of Financial Policy and Regulation Department, outlined the implementation of the new policy.
It directed that, effective immediately, new Tier 1 accounts or wallets can only be opened with BVN or NIN.
The bank said for existing accounts without NIN or BVN, unfunded accounts would be placed on ‘Post No Debit or Credit’ until the requirements are met.
It stated that beginning March next year, all funded accounts without BVN and NIN would be restricted from transactions. Many Nigerians took to social media to ask how people can have accounts without BVN.
Nigerians react: “This new NIN requirement for account opening is tricky. It means that if I’m acquiring a customer, I’m doing a two-level check on BVN + NIN, and both have tokenization (two OTPs), which means longer onboarding time. Then, I will need a PII matching script somewhere to validate foundational KYC data, @Abiola_Usman said on X.
Customers, especially those in the fintech space who are trying to acquire customers. Remember that they still have “TRUST” issues. So how do they not to onboard easily? NIN wey get the problem, or is it BVN that people are scared to give you? Sometimes”
@noveverst wrote: “Bosun won’t fix NIN and BVN to work effectively. Give Nigeria the primary data it needs. He is either chasing AI, Telemedicine, or now WhatsApp. Bro, fix Nigeria’s data.”
Other Nigerians say the citizens are swimming in an ocean of biometrics, wondering when they will be unified.
