BVN DEADLINE: WHY CUSTOMERS BESEIGED IKORODU BANKS IN LATE HOUR RUSH FOR REGISTRATION.

Bank  customers yesterday, June 30th, 2015 besieged Ikorodu banks as the Bank Verification Number(BVN) exercise closes officially. This is owing to the fear that they may be denied access to their accounts and other banking transactions after today's deadline.

T&C magazine's Ikorodu marketplace paid a visit to some banks around Ikorodu area of Lagos to observe customers response barely 24 hours to its deadline.

While some bank customers feigned ignorance of the BVN exercise and today's deadline, others agreed it was due to their negligence on their own part while some complained of work schedules as most banks were not opened on weekends to enable them register before the deadline.

During the visit at 1 noon, it was observed that the crowd in the banks didn't seem to have reduced from as early as 7am when they started arriving at the banks to beat the deadline.

Despite the long queues at the banks, only few bank staffs were delegated by the for the exercise but the crowd would not budge. In one of the branches of the banks,  an account holder, Mr Isah Suliamon lamented about how he has been waiting to get register since 6:30 am and as at few minutes before 1pm, he was  yet to enter the banking hall, let alone register.

In a related development, the exercise also recorded a casualty as an unnamed  man who was struggling to get his BVN got the beating of his life in the hands of a soldier and sustained injury on the head.

It is worthy to note that on the 14th of February 2014, the Central Bank of Nigeria launched a centralised biometric identification system for all banks in Nigeria called the Bank Verification Number (BVN) with immense benefits to all bank customers.

Some of such benefits include; protection of accounts from unauthorized persons. It will also serve as means of identification in all banks nationwide with computer generated biometric identity to bank customers across all the different Nigerian banks.

As at the time of filing this report, many customers are still seen at most bank branches spread around the town. This is despite the extension of the exercise till October ending as announced by central bank of Nigeria in a release posted on its website yesterday.