Nigerian commercial banks closed around 2 million bank accounts in the first quarter of 2024, Q1’24.
According to latest report, the banks took this step to get rid of suspicious accounts, especially because some customers didn’t follow the rules about linking their accounts to the National Identity Number, NIN.
In December 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, told all the banks to limit access to tier-1 accounts without the right NIN and BVN.
In a recent report by the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, it was gathered that over two million accounts were closed in line with the CBN directive.
The NIBSS also indicated that the number of inactive bank accounts grew month-on-month, MoM, by four million or 2.0 per cent to 19.7 million in March 2024 from 19.3 million in the previous month, February.
However, the report which was sighted by Vanguard also indicated that the number of active bank accounts in the country grew by 6.62 million or 3.0 percent to 219.64 million from 213.02 million in February.
A bank account is classified inactive when it records zero transactions including deposits, withdrawals, transfers or point-of-sale transactions for six months.