By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigeria’s central bank Friday launched bank verification number (BVN) a biometric authentication for bank customers to ensure an effective banking and payment system in the nation’s banking industry.
Lamido Sanusi, governor of Nigeria’s central bank at the launch of the BVN in Lagos Nigeria said the biometric authentication is designed to ensure safety of funds and to check losses of customers’ deposits through the compromise of their personal identification numbers (PIN).
Sanusi at the launching ceremony of the BVN at the central bank’s Lagos office said within the next 18 months, deposit money banks would have completed capturing the biometric details of all its customers across the country.
He affirmed that the CBN by next week would commence the issuance of circulars to all banks in Nigeria directing their customers to come in and register for the biometric authentication.
The Nigeria’s central bank governor further affirmed that the BVN would attract no charges from banks, ‘’the BVN would allow banks to enroll and verify the identity of each customer from any point of transaction device,’’ he said.
In the same vein, Ade Shonubi, Managing Director (MD) of the Nigeria’s Inter-Bank Settlement System, (NIBSS) providing the connectivity service, said the initiative represented a major landmark in the bankers committee’s efforts at promoting financial inclusion drive and prevent money laundering in the system.
Shonubi said the bankers’ committee’s initiative would enable deposit money banks give their customers’ unique identities.
Similarly, Godwin Emefiele, MD of Zenith Bank Plc and chairman, sub-committee on Biometric in bankers’ committee, congratulated Nigeria’s central bank on the launch of the BVN, ‘’this will bring about more banking services for bank customers,’’ he said.
Emefiele said the BVN if supported by banks, would boost consumer lending and the economy irrespective of banks’ customers’ status and class.
“The issue of forgetting one’s personal identity number when it comes to transaction does not arise because the biometric cards only use bio-data information,” he said.
