BVN: MFBs’ investments in enrolment machines register 80% customers

As Biometric Verification Number (BVN) registration for Microfinance Banks’ customers ends December 31, 2017, not less than 80 per cent depositor of the national licensed MFBs has been registered during the year, former Managing Director, ACCION Microfinance Bank Limited, Bunmi Lawson, has disclosed.

Responding in to enquiries over the weekend, she said: “We have to Invest in the machines. We bought significant of machines. Each machines cost almost N600,000 until the CBN came up with a subsidy- the more machine you buy, the more subsidy you can get.”

She explained that in order to cover the whole of Nigeria, you will need a number of investments in the machines. For BVN exercise, we are investing massively in something that does not give us a return.

According to her, you get the identification and what happen is that you’re enabling bank to steal your customers. Once you have BVN, the world is open to your customers. BVN is a good incentive but I don’t think individual MFB bear the cost. Identification management is what we call a public good and government should bear the cost. It will help the banking sector but that customer becomes everybody’s customer.

“Again, MFBs are best place to reach the pyramid but significant government support should be added. CBN has started in the right direction, providing us with subsidy but if we want to cover Nigeria, we need more subsidies.

Unfortunately, we don’t have enough capital like the telecommunication companies.

“What we did was to partner with different commercial banks to say that when we have customer who wants to open account, we send them to the banks. Banks do the registration, then they bring their BVN to us and then we continue the account process.

“By the time CBN was telling MFBs to register BVN, we had already covered 50 per cent customer at the time. Today, 100 per cent ACCION customers with advance loans have BVN”, She added.

She said that MFBS are on track to making sure that they meet the deadline but the issue is that people who a financial excluded, how many of them have access to BVN, we need more.

“My own point is that how do you now continue to grow to make sure that those financial excluded people have BVN beyond your existing customers”, she stressed.

In the same vein, the President, National Association of Microfinance Bank (NAMB), Mr. Nwoke Rogers, has said the association is not requesting from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) extension to its BVN registration that ends December 31, 2017.

The apex bank had extended the deadline from July 1 to December to allow more prospective MFBs customers to register on BVN.

Speaking with on this development during the weekend, he said, “We are not clamouring for BVN extension because Nigerians will not want to register until the last minutes.

“Many of our members across the country have the machine. There are machines in our branches across the country for customers to enroll. That is the only way MFBs can achieve full enrolment across the country.

“The restriction according to CBN is that after December 31, 2017, MFB customer without BVN will not be allowed to transact until they have BVN linked to their accounts. It is not that their funds will be trapped. Once they have BVN, they will definitely have access to their accounts.

“Some states have more people that are yet to register but the BVN is available for them to do so after the deadline.”

It would be recalled that the Director, Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department, CBN, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, in a circular had pegged July 31, 2017 deadline for OFIs operators to register their customers on the BVN and ensure that all new customers with BVN are linked to their account by August.

Her revised circular last week disclosed several OFIs had breached the regulatory directive of the July 31, 2017 deadline.

She said, “However, due to the conscientious efforts noted, the CBN is disposed to acceding to the appeals received from the Financial Inclusion Secretariat, the NAMB and members of Mortgage Bankers’ Association of Nigeria (MBAN) soliciting for a shift in the deadline to support better compliance and avoid further financial exclusion.

“The various challenges encountered in the early stage of deployment of the joint CBN/NIBSS support to members of NAMB have also informed Managements decision.

“In this regard, Management has approved an extension of the timeline to December 31, 2017 to enable all OFIs continue with the BVN enrollment exercise and report progress.”

The circular signed by her, urged OFIs to ensure that “all customers are enrolled on BVN platform utilizing appropriate Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirement; continue with the submission of progress reports on BVN enrollment on a monthly basis; continue with the display of notices in the banking hall to further sensitize customers on BVN amongst others channels and With effect from January 1, 2018 all customers without BVN link to their account should no longer be entitled to debit operations.”