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Delay hits biometric registration exercise of bank customers

By BusinessNews Staff on April 22, 2014

Over two months after the inauguration of the biometric registration exercise by the Central Bank of Nigeria on behalf of the Bankers’ Committee, banks have yet to commence the registration of their customers.

Investigation has shown that only 48 bank offices out of the over 5,500 in the country have been installed with the hardware needed for the biometric registration exercise.

The Governor of the CBN, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, had on February 14, inaugurated the biometric registration exercise at the CBN head office in Lagos with the registration of customers expected to commence a week later.

However, the team handling the project – comprising of the officials of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc, Chams Plc and Dermalog of Germany – said the registration of bank customers would commence on April 1 after the Site Acceptance Test.

The team had said the registration exercise would commence in 48 bank offices (head office and a choice branch for 24 banks) before the scope would be expanded.

But findings by our correspondent revealed that as of Friday, biometric registration had not commenced in any of the 48 centres.

In the bank offices where the project team had installed the biometric equipment it was gathered that officials were still test-running the equipment using fellow employees as customers.

Sources close to the banks said they would commence the registration of customers when they were sure the system was mistake-proof.

A source close to the banks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to lack of authorisation to comment on the matter, said, “Banks are still test-running the device in those 48 centres, comprising their head offices and one choice branch. As soon as they are sure the system is mistake-proof, they will start registering the public. They want to be sure there won’t be any mistake once they start registering the public. So, for now, they are still test-running.”

It is uncertain when the companies handling the biometric scheme would commence installing the registration devices in the thousands of bank branches yet to be covered.

However, banking sources said based on developments so far, the project would run into delays. Another problem, which might lead to delays, they added, was that banks were not being carried along properly.

Already, the April 1 commencement date set by the team handling the project had been missed. This is despite the fact that it came more than a month and half after the project was inaugurated by the CBN Governor.

Meanwhile, Sanusi had said during the inauguration of the project that the registration exercise would last for only 18 months, after which bank customers would not be able to do any transaction without their fingerprints.

He noted that the development represented a milestone in the nation’s financial system and economy in general.

According to him, the new biometric registration will lead to the issuing of Bank Verification Number, a unique identity for every bank customer, and help to mitigate fraud, money laundering and other vices in the country.

The team handling the project had in a statement said the pilot phase would serve as a model and basis for nationwide deployment of the solution, noting that trainings were being conducted to users just as central servers were being installed at the banks.

[Punch]

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