Kemi Adeosun, finance minister says Monday that some federal government workers are moving huge government cash out through Mico Finance Banks (MFBs) where transactions do not require Biometric Verification Numbers (BVN) .
Adeosun said her office discovered that prior to the deadline for obtaining the BVN, there was movement of a large number of salary accounts of Federal employees from commercial banks to Microfinance Banks (MFBs).
The minister is now strongly soliciting the cooperation of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the requirement for BVN to account holders in Microfinance Banks (MFBs). This she said, is to facilitate the detection of bank accounts which might have been opened and operated in such banks for ghost workers by fraudulent syndicates.
“This is a suspicious activity and we have already commenced a review of such cases to identify and investigate any cases of fraud,” the minister informed Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in a memo with which she appealed that usage of BVN for verification should now apply to the MFBs.
