Commercial banks in Nigeria closed 2.021 million bank accounts in the first quarter of 2024 to clean their books of questionable accounts and comply with regulatory orders on the linkage of bank accounts to the National Identity Number (NIN).
This was contained in a report
by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS.
Recall that in December 2023,
the CBN issued a directive to all commercial banks in the country to restrict
tier-1 accounts without proper Biometric Verification Number, BVN, and National
Identity Number, NIN, that are not linked by Thursday, March 1st, 2024.
The report also indicated that
the number of inactive bank accounts grew month-on-month, MoM, by four million
or 2.0 per cent to 19.7 million in March 2024 from 19.3 million in the previous
month, February.
A bank account is classified
inactive when it records zero transactions including deposits, withdrawals,
transfers or point-of-sale transactions for six months.
However, details of the
“Industry Bank Account Database”, a monthly data reported by banks, and
compiled by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, also indicated
that the number of active bank accounts grew by 6.62 million or 3.0 per cent to
219.64 million from 213.02 million in February.
According to NIBSS data on BVN
enrollment count, 61.6 million Nigerians have BVN as of April 2024.
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