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CBN to extend BVN registration to cover micro finance, mortgage banks

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CBN to extend BVN registration to cover micro finance, mortgage banks

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has said that customers of Microfinance Banks, MFBs and Primary Mortgage institutions, PMIs, would be required to undergo Bank Verification Number, BVN, registration.

The CBN also said it would henceforth monitor banks to ensure that dispense errors arising from electronic transactions are authomatically reversed.

This, according to the CBN Director, Banking and Payment Systems Department, Dipo Fatokun, has become neccessary because of several complains from bank customers over delays and sometimes, non reversal of such dispense errors.

According to Fatokun, any bank that continue to err would be sanctioned.

Fatokun, who spoke at the bi-monthly forum of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria, FICAN, hosted by the central bank in Lagos at the weekend, said the central bank had received complaints from customers against some banks which dispense errors are not reverted even after complaints had been lodged by the customers to their respective banks.

He said: “We discovered that many of these dispense errors that were not returned to the customers were sitting as idle balances for the banks. So what we have done is that from last year, banks are supposed to electronically return the money for either a non-dispense error or partial dispense error.

“We will soon start monitoring the banks because almost all the banks have given us statistics of what they claim they have returned to their customers. The system should be automated such that whether a customer complains or not, when there is a partial dispense or non-dispense, such customer’s account should be refunded and if it is not refunded, then they stand liable.”

On the extention of BVN registration to cover MFBs and PMIs, the CBN director said deposit money banks would serve as registration points while customers of the MFBs and PMIs would be required to verify their BVN at their respective financial institutions.

“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 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.

“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) and Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) are brought into the system and begin to get their BVNs,” Fatokun said.

By Timothy Enietan-Matthews…

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