If latest data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) is anything to go by, the chances of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), deposit money banks and other operators in the financial system achieving their target of 70 million Bank Verification Number (BVN) enrolments by 2020 look increasingly remote, findings by New Telegraph show.
Top industry officials had, at a press conference in August last year, announced that in line with plans for the implementation of the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF) initiative, CBN, DMBs and their partners planned to increase total BVN enrolment from about 33 million, at the time, to 70 million by 2020.
The SANEF initiative, which is primarily aimed at accelerating financial inclusion in the country, was launched in late March 2018 by CBN in collaboration with DMBs, NIBSS, licensed Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) and shared agents.
Speaking at the briefing, a member of the technical committee set up by CBN to deepen financial inclusion, Guaranty Trust Bank’s Mr. Bolaji Lawal, said that the plan to almost double the number of Nigerians with BVN within two years was critical to boosting the country’s financial inclusion rate as well as ensuring financial stability.
He specifically stated that operators were committed to enrolling “40 million new unique BVNs between now and year 2020; 10 million in 2018, 15 million in 2019 and 15 million in 2020.”
He disclosed that as part of plans to ensure that the 70 million enrolment target by 2020 was met, 10,000 remote BVN devices were ordered by NIBSS and were being deployed by DMBs, MMOs and super agents.
He also disclosed that under the initiative, CBN had set aside N20 billion, which would be accessed by operators at a reduced interest rate, to enable them create 500,000 shared agent network points (access points) across the country by 2020.
According to him, 70,000 access points had already been created and nine operators, comprising three mobile money operators and six super agents, which are part of the scheme, had accessed N4.5 billion of the N20 billion.
However, it’s been slightly over a year since that press conference was held and latest BVN data released by NIBSS shows that as at August 25, total BVN enrolment in the country stood at 38.9 million. This means that between August 2018 and August this year, only about six million people were enrolled on the BVN platform by operators.
Thus, analysts point out that with less than 16 months to go, it’s highly unlikely that the 70 million BVN enrolment target will be achieved. Indeed, it means that for the target to be met, operators have to enrol about 31.9 million people on the BVN platform by the end of next year.
New Telegraph’s investigations, in fact, indicate that there has been a significant slowdown in BVN enrolment in recent times compared with the situation three years ago.
For instance, an analysis of NIBSS’ BVN figures at the end of June this year, as well as the organisation’s Electronic Payments Fact sheet for January-March 2019, show that total BVN enrolments increased from 36.4 million at the end of December 2018 to 38.2 million at the end of June this year. This means that total BVN enrolment rose by about 1.9 million in the six-month period.
NIBSS’ Electronic Payments Fact sheet for the first quarter of this year also indicates that BVN enrolment stood at 37.4 million while total active BVNs across all banks stood at 29.4 million.
Compared with total BVN enrolment at the end of last year, which stood at 36.4 million, this means that one million customers enrolled for the BVN initiative in the first three months of this year.
Further review of BVN enrolment data since the initiative was launched on February 14, 2014, confirms that the pace of enrolment by bank customers has declined in the past one year.
For instance, on the eve of the October 31, 2015 deadline that CBN set for bank customers to register for BVN, data released by the apex bank, as well as NIBSS, showed that 20.8 million bank customers had enrolled over 40 million accounts in various banks in the country.
By December 2016, according to NIBSS data, the number of bank customers that had registered for BVN had increased to 27.7million. It climbed to 30.7 million by October 29, 2017, indicating that about 10 million bank customers were enrolled on the BVN platform between October 2015 and October 2017- a two-year period.
Contrastingly, going by NIBSS data of 38.9million total BVN enrolment as at August 25 this year, it means that between October 2017 and today, about 8.2million bank customers have been registered for the BVN project.
Industry watchers told this newspaper that the slowdown in BVN enrolment was a cause for concern, as it could defeat the purpose for launching the initiative.
Launched on February 14, 2014, by CBN, in collaboration with the Bankers’ Committee, NIBSS and the German firm, Dermalog, the $50 million BVN project, which involved capturing biometrics of every bank customer and giving them a unique identity that can be verified across the Nigerian banking industry, was aimed at significantly reducing incidents of fraud and money laundering in the banking industry as well as enhancing financial inclusion by opening up opportunities for credit to millions of Nigerians without a standard means of identification.
Financial experts argue that by giving each bank customer a unique identification number that can be verified across the country’s industry, the BVN project has reduced the chances of criminals trying to impersonate people to attack their bank accounts.
https://www.newtelegraphng.com/2019/09/bvn-slow-enrolment-sparks-concern-over-2020-target/
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