Nigerian commercial banks in the first quarter of 2024 closed approximately 2 million bank accounts.
This measure aimed to tackle the presence of questionable accounts, particularly those where customers had failed to adhere to regulatory directives regarding the linkage of their accounts to the National Identity Number (NIN).
The directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in December 2023 mandated all commercial banks to enforce stricter measures on tier-1 accounts lacking proper NIN and Biometric Verification Number (BVN).
According to a recent report from the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), over 2 million accounts were shut down in alignment with the CBN’s directive.
Additionally, the report highlighted a concerning trend of growing inactive bank accounts, which increased by 4 million or 2.0 percent on a month-on-month basis, reaching 19.7 million in March 2024 from 19.3 million in the preceding month of February.
Despite this, the report also revealed a positive development—the number of active bank accounts in the country experienced growth.
Specifically, there was an increase of 6.62 million or 3.0 percent, bringing the total active accounts to 219.64 million from 213.02 million in February.
For context, a bank account is classified as inactive when it registers no transactions, be it deposits, withdrawals, transfers, or point-of-sale transactions, for a period of six months.
