December 27,2022

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that it has placed at least 6,047 Bank Verification Numbers on its watch list over fraudulent transactions.

CBN stated this in its Financial Stability June 2022 report published in December 2022 on its website

The report also noted that 11,871 BVNs have been watch-listed as deceased persons this year.

According to the report this was an assessment of 28 banks and the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System to ascertain compliance with the Regulatory Framework for BVN Operations and Watch-List for the Nigerian Banking Industry in the review period.

It noted that the assessment revealed some infractions and regulatory actions were taken

The report further noted that there were 2.72 million enrolled in the first half of this year, bringing the total number of enrolled BVNs to 54.65 million

In the report, it was also stated that the number of BVN-linked accounts was 130.57 million out of 148.46 million active accounts.

The report read in part, “Also, 2,722,518 BVNs were enrolled, bringing total BVN enrolment to 54,651,086, reflecting an increase of 5.24 per cent over 51,928,568 enrolments at end-December 2021

The number of accounts linked with BVNs was 130,569,656 out of 148,462,947 active customer accounts, while the number of watch-listed BVNs associated with fraud and deceased persons stood at 6,047 and 11,871, respectively.”

Based on the report, the total number of watch-listed BVNs for fraud rose by 13.09 per cent from 5,347 in December 2021 to 6,047 in June 2022.