Faced with the problem of insecurity on customer accounts, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on February, 2014 initiated a compulsory bank verification number exercise which provides account holders with a unique number that enables the account holder to have a single identity in the banking system aimed at protecting bank customers from identity theft and other financial/economic crimes emanating in the banking sector of Nigeria (Orji, 2014) .

The Bank Verification Nlumber (BVN) is a bold step taken by the Central Bank of Nigeria, to strengthen security in the banking sector of Nigeria. One beauty of the BVN is that transactions will be safer once it is implemented fully. The BVN exercise aims at ensuring that bank transactions are safer and fraudulent transactions are minimized, if not totally eliminated. The campaign is on, but the public may not realize its importance until it closes in in the new extension deadline, October 2015.

BVN uses biometric technology to register customers in the banking sector. It records these physical features which are unique to individuals fingerprints and the face. The record would be used to identify the person afterwards. Once a person’s biometrics have been recorded, and BVN issued the account would be accessed through BVN. The major objectives of the initiative are to protect bank customers, reduce fraud and strengthen the Nigerian banking system.

Biometric enrolment is helpful to people who cannot read and write. Their finger prints and pictures would serve the same purpose as signatures. Multiple account holders would be covered with a single registration in any of the banks where they have accounts.

BVN will help the banking system reduce situations where loan defaulters, for instance, move from one bank to the other and the banks extend new credits to them, without knowing their history.  Banks would be able to track transactions across all banks in Nigeria with more ease.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM