Banks to begin biometric registration of customers on Friday

The Bankers’ Committee on Tuesday rose from its 315th meeting and announced that the biometric registration of bank customers would commence on Friday.

As a result, all Deposit Money Banks will on that day commence the registration of their customers’ details, including their fingerprints.

The Group Managing Director, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Herbert Wigwe, briefed journalists at the end of the bi-monthly meeting held in Lagos.

He said the biometric identification system would help the fight against fraud and money laundering, and also enhance the protection of bank customers.

“The banking industry, under the auspices of the Bankers’ Committee, has been working to improve the Know Your Customer requirement. The idea is to fight fraud, money laundering and ensure a better customer protection. The initiative will be launched this Friday, February 14,” Wigwe said.

He said the banks, in collaboration with the CBN, had been working on the initiative for a long time, adding that necessary infrastructure had been put in place to ensure the smooth roll out of the biometric scheme.

“There will be teething problems, but we will learn from it. The biometric initiative is being pursued by the Bankers’ Committee,” the Access Bank boss said.

The Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Mr. Ugochukwu Okoroafor, said the biometric system, when fully operational, would help to improve credit in the economy and boost the nation’s macro-economy.

Okoroafor said, “Nigeria runs on cash; there is no identity. We don’t know who is who. We are now going into identity confirmation. We can now create a credit system that will power our economy.

“Banks don’t want to lend because of identity issue. We want to move Nigeria from cash system to credit system that has identity.”

The central bank also announced that its Cash-Lite policy would go nationwide by July1.

The Head, Shares Services, CBN, Mr. Chidi Umeano, said the development would help to modernise the nation’s payment system.

He said, “Statistics show that there has been a shift from the traditional cash-carrying system to electronic form of payment. For instance, there is the Nigerian Electronic Fund Transfer(NEFT), Nigerian Instant Payment(NIP), Point of Sale terminal (POS) and Mobile Money.

''On Monday, the value of transactions carried out using the NEFT was N153bn; Nigerian Instant Pay, N37bn; PoS terminals, N50m; and Mobile Money, N12m, totalling N190.62bn for a single day.”

The CBN had two years ago introduced the cash-less policy in Lagos and Abuja, but last year added six other states.

Oyetunji Abioye