UBA recounts BVN gains, to launch USSD account opening system

United Bank for Africa (UBA Plc, said that the introduction of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has brought sanity to customer identification processes in the banking sector.

Similarly, the bank is aligning with the regulator’s plans to making account opening and financial services very simple, as it sets to launch an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), code for account openings using mobile phones.

USSD is a Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication technology that is used to send text between a mobile phone and an application program in the network Applications may include prepaid roaming or mobile chatting.

Speaking on the plans, Dr. Yinka Adedeji, divisional head, Consumer and Digital Banking at UBA, further extolled the CBN’s decision to allow owners of Savings account to receive cheques upto the tune of N2million into their accounts daily.

This, Dr Adedeji has opened new vistas of hope for small businesses to enjoy more financial activities that will rave up their operations.

Speaking to ICT correspondents in Lagos, he said “Also, we are looking at all the directions that the CBN is trying to push. We are aligning with all the regulators in all the countries we operate in, making account opening and financial services very simple through creation of capacities and partnerships with people that are deeper in grassroots banking viz-a-viz agency banking.

“As a way of driving financial inclusion too, we will soon introduce online account opening using USSD; it will be a very great opportunity to reach out to many people using mobile devices to open account seamlessly. But, we regard Bank Verification Number (BVN), you can only complete it when you visit the banking hall. And this has really helped to improve the Know Your Customer (KYC) in banking sector.

“Now, there are multiple names of accounts that we are trying to simplify to make it easier for people to have transactions with us. Thanks to the Central Bank of Nigeria, again, for introducing the BVN. With BVN, customers have become very unique. Now, you are allowed to accept cheque up to N2million per day into your savings account. People may view it as minimal, but this is a major change. It implies that you can run businesses on savings account.

“I don’t think the benefit is well explained or communicated. We have been trying to communicate to our customers that this is a good thing. If you get your dividends, cheques and other payments, you can just use your savings account giving the fact you have BVN. It makes banking more convenient. It allows the old cheque method to be integrated to the inflow that is electronically generated in the present. If you calculate it, over 95% Nigerians, probably, receive cheque less than N2million per day. We are referring to those running schools and SMEs; they don’t receive that much per day. Majority of them actually come through electronic channels”.