The Group Managing Director, Chams Plc, Sir Ademola Aladekomo, on Wednesday said that by 2016, many Nigerians would change the way they transfer and use money because of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) project.
Aladekomo said this at the 3rd International Conference on Science and Technology at the Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu.
He said, this was because the BVN project had achieved over 20 million authentic and full proof records of banking customers.
According Aladekomo, the BVN will give Nigeria a higher confidence in its fight against corruption and fraud, as economic frauds can be easily tracked and curbed due to access to customers’ databases.
He said the BVN project would build a big capacity for the security agencies like the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Department of State Security (DSS).
Aladekomo added that it would be useful for the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), police and the judiciary.
“The security agencies can access the databases, track the trend and make logical conclusions regarding any suspicious activity.
“Recent research data on e-fraud in Nigeria by the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) indicates that Banks lost a total of N159 billion to electronic fraud between 2000 and first quarter of 2013.
“This was partly linked to ineffective banking industry Know Your Customer (KYC) standards. Therefore banks will be able to curb fraudulent transaction through BVN.
“For those people with about 12 accounts, the BVN has made it easy to track them down when there is need for asset declaration because all the asset are linked,’’ he said.
Aladekomo said that over 18 months into the BVN project and over 20 million authentic customer data, the implementation of the project by Charms Plc and Dermalog, a German company had been successful. Vanguard
