In a bid to comply with regulatory directives and streamline their operations, commercial banks in Nigeria shuttered 2.021 million bank accounts during the first quarter of 2024. This initiative aimed to cleanse their books of dubious accounts and adhere to mandates regarding the linkage of bank accounts with the National Identity Number (NIN).
According to a report by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), the tally of inactive bank accounts surged by four million, or 2.0 percent month-on-month, reaching 19.7 million by March 2024 from 19.3 million in February. An account is classified as inactive when it registers no transactions, including deposits, withdrawals, transfers, or point-of-sale transactions, for a duration of six months.
However, insights from the “Industry Bank Account Database,” a monthly dataset compiled by NIBSS based on reports from banks, revealed a contrasting trend, with the number of active bank accounts witnessing a growth of 6.62 million, or 3.0 percent, climbing to 219.64 million from 213.02 million in February.
This move follows a directive issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in December 2023, mandating all commercial banks to deactivate tier-1 accounts lacking proper linkage to the Biometric Verification Number (BVN) and National Identity Number (NIN) by Thursday, March 1st, 2024. As per NIBSS data on BVN enrollment count, the tally stood at 61.6 million Nigerians with BVN as of April 2024.
