- BVN: Necessary for Banking Transactions
The Deputy Governor, Operations, Central Bank of Nigeria, Adebisi Shonubi, said that the Bank Verification Number was created to identify individual customer and also expose fraudsters.
In a statement, he said this at the first accounting technology summit by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria with the theme, ‘Disruptive technologies: The game changer for businesses.’
According to him, using biometric data for transaction authentication was an important part of the BVN.
While acknowledging the importance of technology to individuals and businesses, Shonubi disagreed that fintech would drive economy without infrastructure and enabling environment for it to thrive.
He stated, “Fintech does not drive economy, that is not true. It is the people that drive economy all over the world and only Fintechs support. I think Fintechs in Nigeria are trying, they are in embryonic stage. And the reason I insisted that it was people is that for fintech to thrive, there has to be an enabling environment.”
Shonubi added that, “For the difficult environment we are in, I think fintechs are doing a very good job. But they can’t do it alone, if you don’t put infrastructure in place, it will always be limiting for them and for us to use that as well.”
According to him, fintechs have brought about change in the ecosystem, introducing new set of skills that became beneficial, allaying fears that technology would take away jobs from workers.
In his welcome address, the President, ICAN, Razak Jaiyeola said the summit was one of the strategic initiatives of the institute at ensuring that its members and professionals in other disciplines were adequately prepared for the fourth industrial revolution.
The ICAN president said, “Failure to keep pace with the disruptive technological trend portends danger of extinction for any business entity or individual. The idea of too-big-to-fail has become an illusion. Interestingly, what we are experiencing might just be a tip of the iceberg.”