It could be recalled that in February 2014, the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN), in conjunction with the Bankers Committee launched the Bank
Verification Number (BVN) project.
The aim is to ensure that banks operating in Nigeria, their
customers in a project tagged: Know –Your- Customer (KYC) standards.
The bottom-line is to eventually prevent fraud, perform credit
checks on customers and verify customer’s integrity and provide unrestricted
financial access to millions of Nigerian adults in the informal sectors, using a
biometric point of transaction device.
However, Temidayo
Omoniyi Omoniyi, head, information technology department of Skye bank Plc, during an interactive forum organized by
Consumer
Rights Awareness
Advancement and Advocacy Initiatives,(CRAAAI) in Lagos, south-west Nigeria stated that the issue of
BVN is global.
According to him, the BVN could reduce illegal banking
transactions and improve national financial intelligence gathering, since it
could lead to account holders having increased confidence in the banking
system, knowing that their banking transactions are safe.
Omoniyi, who spoke on: “Solving Identify Management Crises: The
Role Of Nigerian Banks Viz Bank Verification Number (BVN)”, further explained
that identity management is a broad administrative area that deals with
identifying individuals in a particular system, such as a country, a network,
or an enterprise and controlling their access to resources within that system
by associating user rights and restrictions with the established identity.
His
words: :The role of Technology in modernising the banking sector has witnessed
a paradigm shift from the traditional methods of banking to digital channels
which involve enormous levels of Electronic Data capture (“EDC”) of customer’s
Information”
He
however lamented that with the increase in technology in this area, so is the
upsurge in criminal activities in their aim to fraudulently obtain bank customer’s
identity, due to vast amounts of data available and the cunning means criminals
have been using to access same information.
But,
banks find it increasingly challenging to detect the true identity of those who
claim to be their customers and provide lasting solution to protect customer’s
data.
Drilling out statistics on the negative effects of suspected
criminals having access to data of bank customers, the Skye bank IT expert
explained that that a survey conducted by Safenet revealed that around
the world, 1,355 records are stolen every minute, by suspected criminals, who
use these detailed information, purportedly supply by some corrupt bank workers
to commit fraud.
Again, his words: “Data
is further expanded and identities patiently fleshed out over time by
data-stealing malware and clever social engineering techniques applied against
banks’ clients as well as call center agents”.
It is estimated that on the average, banks in Nigeria were at a
risk of losing one million naira every working day due to the incidence of
frauds which come in different guise or forms.
He identified some fraudulent activities carried out due to
improper identity management to include: theft, embezzlement, defalcation,
forgeries, impersonation and computer fraud, among others.
Speaking also on the financial inclusion, the banker said that the
percentage of the unbanked in Nigeria is about 46.3% of the 120.7 million adult
populations, arguing that a further survey conducted in Nigeria in 2008 by
Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access, a development finance organization,
revealed that about 53.0% of adults were excluded from financial services.
The banker said that terrorist groups such as Al shabaab, Al Qua’da, ISIS, Boko haram, Hezbollah were funded
through Kidnapping of hostages, running farms, seizing banks, taxation of
trades and other businesses occurring or passing through areas under their
control, illicit drugs sale and credit card frauds, among others. However,
BNV could checkmate criminalities.
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