What you need to know about new BVN 2.0
Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bankers’ Committee has started the Bank Verification Number (BVN) classification (BVN 2.0) plan that allows both the rich and poor in rural areas access financial services.
Governor, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, who broke the news at the end of the 11th Bankers’ Committee retreat in Ogere, Ogun State, explained that BVN will now be classified into two, BVN Premium and BVN Lite.
What it means: BVN Premium covers customers that can provide the 18 basic requirements for a complete BVN enrolment.
The BVN Lite requires minimal documentations like name and phone number for bank customers, especially those at the rural areas that do not meet the full requirements.
Why it matters: The development would enable such grassroots customers, mainly the poor, conduct minimal financial services and reduce financial exclusion rate for Nigeria.
The initiative, which is in collaboration with the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) and Mobile Money Operators (MMOs), would ensure more Nigerians brought into the financial system.
He said, “The BVN 2.0 classification scheme will help bring more people into the financial system and reduce the financial exclusion rate.
“Know Your Customer (KYC) scheme is part of what will be migrated into the BVN Lite. However, there are people who are currently financially excluded, like people in our rural communities that carry phones, but not having financial services. With the collaboration of NCC, we are putting this BVN arrangement to allow them conduct minimal financial services.
“It should be possible for us to migrate this people into the BVN lite arrangement where they can conduct minimal financial services, not just banking services, but minimal financial services, insurance and anything you want to conduct in terms of finance, e-payment, or anything, you can do it with the aid of your phone. Bringing them into financial system will help to increase the rate of financial inclusion and reduce exclusion rate.”
How it affects you: With the benefits of the BVN to bank customers and the economy, the CBN boss said that there is a need to consolidate and move BVN to BVN 2.0.
“This entails for instance to reclassify and segregate transactions that could be done on BVN. We have two classifications. The existing BVN that we have in the system has about 18 lines of information. If you are on BVN lite there is a limit to the kind of transactions you can do in terms of deposit and in terms of loans,” he added.
“The important thing is that we want to make you financially included where you can conduct basic banking services. Our people in the rural communities who have BVN lite will later be migrated to the BVN premium when you meet all the requirements,” he stated.
About BVN: The CBN’s initiative was introduced into the banking sector in 2014 and has since enrolled over 40 million bank customers into the scheme and targets taking the number of BVN-linked accounts to 100 million in the next five years.
The scheme, which gives each bank customer unique identification, was meant to revolutionise the banking and payment systems while ensuring safety of depositors’ funds.
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