BVN: Complaints as customers are shut out from ATMs access, accounts

Many bank customers have been going through grueling experiences over the Bank Verification Number, not because they did not register as the Central Bank of Nigeria instructed but because their accounts have not been linked.

On Wednesday, confusion pervaded many Automated Teller Machine centres as customers just discovered they had been shut out from their accounts.

The Rainbow correspondent who went round banks in Surulere, Lagos on Wednesday reported of long queues in banking halls as customers move to link their accounts.

At Guaranty Trust Bank e-branch at Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, many customers were furious that they could not access their funds. Many of them said they had been to several banks and could not withdraw. According to them, the message they were getting from the ATM machines was ‘Invalid transactions, contact your bank.’

Incidentally, many of them did not know that what they were experiencing was directly linked with the BVN registration.

One of the customers in the GTB e-express branch who gave his name as Fatai expressed dismay at the development. Fatai accused the CBN and the banks of not doing enough in terms of giving out proper information on the BVN scheme.

He said that he had registered and obtained his BVN card long ago but no one told him any bit about linking and the consequences of not linking hi accounts in various banks to his BVN.

According to him, even though the BVN registration had been advertised for months, it was reticent on the linking. He decried this development which he said was another sign of the inefficiencies in our system.

Another customer, this time an Access Bank customer by name Blessing Ogbu who had a transfer transaction to make, went to the bank early Wednesday but could not effect the transaction. She had BVN card issued by Zenith Bank But she had not linked her accounts to it because she was not aware all that was needful for her to effect.

It was the same thing in most of branches visited by our correspondent. Many customers were disappointed by the inability of the CBN and and their bankers to provide proper guidelines.

According to them, they thought that all they needed to do was to register and obtain their BVN. They said that if things were properly done it would saved the agonies of being shut out from their accounts and staying almost for a long while on queues.

Jude Eze, at First Bank Aguda, said, “I did my BVN registration last year and have since obtained my card. But nobody told all this stuff about linking to other accounts. I think this a very bright idea, but you know like every Nigerian, we do not appreciate the importance of proper communication. They ought o have put out the information out there and let people be properly guided. I am not a guy for a last minute rush, but see what has happened to me, spending hours doing what I could easily have strolled into my banks to effect.”