Following the apprehension and out cry of customers, the Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has extended the Bank Registration Verification
(BVN) exercise deadline to October 31, to accommodate those who had thronged the banks to beat an earlier closing date.
This was contained in a circular issued by the apex bank and signed
by the Director, Banking and Payment System Department, Dipo Fatokun,
on Tuesday.
The reason, according to CBN, “It has come to our notice that the
BVN registration has elicited tremendous interest from the Nigerian bank
customers who crowded the banking halls in order to beat the deadline.
“In view of the foregoing, it has become imperative for the banks
to extend the timeline for all customers to have the BVN. The deadline
for the enrolment is hereby extended from June 30 to October 31.”
According to the statement, the extension is expected to facilitate a smooth completion of the registration exercise.
It further stated that the extension would give Nigerian bank customers in the Diaspora, ample time to enrol into the programme.
The statement, however, stated that the guideline for the enrolment
of the Diaspora account holders was being finalised and would be
released soon.
Daily Sun checks in some banks in Lagos showed that customers had a
hectic day trying to register their account numbers due to poor network
and insufficient bank officials to attend to them, as chaotic
situations were recorded in most banks’ premises.
Some customers trooped to the banks as early as 4a.m to ensure they
register their account numbers. Sadly, the entire process seemed to be
epileptic as only a few of them were able to have their account numbers
verified, forcing them to spend over several hours waiting to be
verified.
As at 5p.m
banks were attending to customers, while some of them that have more
than one bank account were also seen with pieces of white papers at the
banks where they had registered wrote their unique BVN numbers to take
to other banks to key in.
Reacting to the initial development, most of the customers who
called for the extension of the deadline to enable them register their
numbers complained of poor awareness.
A customer, Ola Oladeju who spoke to Daily Sun in a banking premise commended CBN for the extension of the exercise.
According to him, this is a good development, as this will
facilitate the accommodation of millions of customers who would have
been left out of the BVN exercise.
Another customer, who thanked CBN for the extension, requested that
the apex bank should come up with a robust strategy to assist those of
us living in diaspora.
He advised those in the country, to do the needful before the deadline rather than wait till the last minute.
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