BVN submission made easy with UBA’s new short code *919*6#

“The process is
very simple. All a customer has to do is to send his or her valid BVN from the
telephone number that was used to open their account to the short code number
and it will become automatically linked,” said Mr. Rasheed Adegoke, Director,
Group Information Technology, UBA.The introduction of this simplified process is in response to some of the
challenges associated with the ongoing BVN exercise. “UBA has come up with this
novel process to ensure that customers who already have their BVN do not have
any issues submitting it to their alternate banks ” explained
Adegoke.

Once customers submit their BVN through the code, they will get an immediate response
letting them know whether their BVN is valid or incorrect.  The responses
will be accompanied by a phone number through which further enquiries can be
made by the customers if required.  In addition to this phone number,
customers can also reach UBA on social media through facebook and twitter or by
calling UBA’s Customer Fulfillment Centre for further clarifications.

The BVN is a unique number given to all bank customers in Nigeria who had their
finger prints and pictures taken at bank branches around the country. Each
customer’s biometric and personal data is attached to all bank accounts he or
she operates whether  personal or corporate. Individual customers have
single BVNs no matter the number of accounts they operate in as many banks as
they desire.  Consequently, customers are able to register for BVN in any
of the banks in which they have accounts. Once they get their numbers, they are
required to send them to all the banks in which they operate accounts.

The goal of the BVN is to uniquely verify the identity of each bank’s
customer for ‘know your customer’ (KYC) purposes.  An initiative of
the Central Bank of Nigeria, BVN helps to reduce fraud, increase the efficiency
of banking operations and also enable customers access to future credit facilities.
The deadline for all bank customers to enroll for BVN was recently extended
to

October 31, 2015.