The new enrolments for the Biometric Verification Number (BVN) by bank account owners in the country rose by 1.7 million in the last two months bringing the total registration to 45.7 million as of December 27, 2020.
According to the data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the registration stood at 44 million as at October 18, 2020.
This showed that a total of 1.7 million new registrations were recorded by the banks between October 19 and December 27.
NIBSS data for 2019 showed that the enrolments had increased averagely by one million every three months.
For instance, while the BVN figure stood at 36.4 million at the end of 2018, it increased to 37.4 million at the end of March 2019. By June 2019, over 900,000 were added to bring the total enrolment figure to 38.3 million.
In the third quarter of 2019, BVN enrolments increased by 1.1 million to 39.4 million at the end of September and by December, another one million registrations were recorded, bringing the total enrolment to 40.4 million at the end of 2019.
While there was a slowdown in registration between February and May 2020, due to the COVID- 19 lockdown, figures of enrolment between May 10 and August 16 stood at 1.3 million.
However, data for the last four months of the year showed a rapid increase in the figure of new registrations as the enrolments increased by at least one million in two months.
Between August 17 and October 18, one million new registrations were recorded by the banks, this was surpassed in the October 19 to December 27 record.
Industry analysts said the recent increase may not be unconnected with a series of government schemes aiming at empowering the people, for which BVN numbers are required.
