Days after the expiration of the deadline set for bank customers to register and obtain their Bank Verification Number (BVN), the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Plc has disclosed that Deposit Money Banks in the country are yet to link 6.6 million BVNs to bank accounts.
It could be recalled that on Tuesday, at least five million bank accounts had been blocked by the banks.
The NIBSS, owned by the CBN and commercial banks in the country, is the technical organisation appointed by the central bank and the Bankers’ Committee to be in charge of the BVN project.
The organisation stated that only the banks had the details of their customers and could therefore link the numbers to the accounts.
The Head, Corporate Communications, NIBSS, Lilian Phido, said the organisation and the CBN had done several public enlightenment campaigns to educate customers on the BVN process, adding that failure to register and link the BVN at the banks could not have been caused by the organisation.
Meanwhile, long queues of customers seeking to obtain and verify their BVNs persisted in banking halls across the country on Tuesday, leading to chaotic situations in most of the branches.