The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it is working on a plan to either blacklist fraudulent bank customers, or at least, place them on watch-list across the banking industry.
According to the CBN, such feat can only be achieved with the help of the Bank Verification Number (BVN).
This was disclosed by the CBN Director, Banking and Payment Systems Department, ‘Dipo Fatokun at the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) Bi-Monthly Forum hosted by the bank in Lagos.
“I want to assure you that the BVN has assisted us a lot in the banking system. It has assisted us to check frauds, and we are working on a framework, that will enable us if not to blacklist customers, because of some legal implications, but at least to watch-list a customer that is identified to have been fraudulent, or have done what he is not supposed to do across the banking sector,” he said.
The CBN Director said the number of BVN linked to customers’ accounts as at August 23, this year was 36.7 million while the total number of individual customers in the banks was reported as 59.9 million as at the same date.
“Any bank customer resident in Nigeria without a BVN would be deemed to have inadequate KYC while effort is on-going to ensure that customers of Other Financial Institutions (OFIs) such as Microfinance Banks (MFBs) & Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) are brought into the system begin to get their BVNs,” he said.