By Emmanuel Udom
The management of Skye Bank of Nigeria Plc has
outlined some of the benefits bank customers in Nigeria stand to gain with the
successful completion of the on-going Bank Verification Number (BVN)
registration, nationwide.
West Africa Business News
re-called 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 of Nigeria Plc, while during a recent
Interactive forum organized by Consumer Rights Awareness Advancement and
Advocacy Initiatives,(CRAAAI) in Lagos, said that the
deployment
of BVN for identification and verification by banks in Nigeria is a first in
global financial market.
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.
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 loosing 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 is also of the opinion 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.
But, with the BNV successfully in place, these
criminalities could be drastically reduced, he concluded.
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