Nigeria: BVN will not expire after ten years- CBN

Nigeria’s Central Bank urged Nigerians to disregard news on the expiration date for the Bank Verification Number (BVN).

The Bank stated that the BVN remains for life, as it has no expiry date.

This was disclosed in a statement by the Acting-Director, Corporate Communications, Alhaji Isa Abdulmumin, reacting to claims of expiration by a national newspaper.

Alhaji Isa Abdulmumin said the Bank Verification Number (BVN) issued in Nigeria remains for life and has no expiry date, citing that the claim was completely false, and urged advised bank customers to ignore it, he added:

• “The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria has been drawn to reports suggesting that the Bank Verification Number issued by the Bank in collaboration with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) expires after a ten-year period.
• “Contrary to these claims, we wish to clarify that the BVN issued in Nigeria has no expiry date.
• “Once a customer’s biometrics have been captured and enrolled in the database of NIBSS, the BVN remains for life”.

Regulatory Framework

He added that the Regulatory Framework for BVN issued by the CBN in 2021 stipulates that customers can only change their records due to certain conditions spelt out in the document and after being cleared by relevant authorities.

• “Therefore, we urge bank customers in the country, especially those whose biometrics have been captured by the system, to continue using their unique identifiers as they last their entire lifetime.”

What you should know

The number of bank account owners in Nigeria with Bank Verification Number (BVN) increased to 57 million as of April 9, 2023.

This was revealed in the latest BVN registration data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS).

However, the data showed that registration for the BVN has slowed since the beginning of this year despite the recent moves by the Central Bank of Nigeria to close all bank accounts not linked.

At the end of 2022, the BVN database stood at 56.5 million. This shows that banks had recorded only about 500,000 new BVN registrations in the first 3 months of this year plus 9 days in April. This is far lower than the average of 400,000 registrations per month recorded last year.