Active bank accounts stand at 219.64 million
By Ola Kay
In an effort to rid its system of questionable accounts, particularly as some customers failed to comply with regulatory orders on the linkage of their accounts to the National Identity Number, NIN, Nigerian commercial banks have succeeded in closing no fewer than 2 million bank accounts in the first quarter of 2024, Q1’24.
This followed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s order in December 2023, to all commercial banks in the country to restrict tier-1 accounts without proper NIN and Biometric Verification Number, BVN.
IA report by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, stated that over two million accounts were closed in carrying out the CBN’s rule. NIBSS also noted 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.
But,on the contrary, the number of active bank accounts in the country grew by 6.62 million or 3.0 percent to 219.64 million from 213.02 million in February.
An account becomes when it records zero transactions including deposits, withdrawals, transfers or point-of-sale transactions for a period six months.
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