“In this regard, it is mandatory for all Tier-1 bank accounts and wallets for individuals to have BVN and/or NIN. “Retrieve their customers’ NIN from NIMC and retrieve their BVNs from NIBSS and marry the two. This circular that has come out will help to strengthen the fight against money laundering. Money laundering thrives on information asymmetry because someone can open 10 accounts with 10 different names where no data connects the person to the accounts. It means that if I’m acquiring a customer, I’m doing a two-level check on BVN + NIN, and both have tokenisation (two OTPs), which means a longer onboarding time.

Source: Punch December 05, 2023 15:00 UTC