ATM Overshadows BVN as Most Visible Proceed of Banking Reforms- Survey

A survey has revealed that Automated-Teller-Machine (ATM) remains the all-time visible proceed of the banking sector reforms to Nigerians, knocking-off the recently introduced Biometric Verification Number (BVN).

A poll commissioned by BusinessDay Media and conducted by NOIPolls Limited in April 2015 revealed that 91% Nigerians see the introduction of the ATM as the most significant reform in the banking sector over the last decade and this is the same across all the geo-political zones and age groups.

The introduction of the NUBAN number (44%); internet banking (42%), Point of Sale-POS (32 percent) and Mobile Money Services (23%), were also mentioned as key banking sector reformation changes.

The least mentioned was the bank verification number (BVN) (2%), which was introduced in February 2014, by the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) as part of its cashless policy to capture customers’ data, give every customer in the Nigerian banking system a unique identification number that can be verified across all banks in Nigeria and check fraud in the banking system.

This finding therefore suggests the need for more rapid awareness creation on the BVN to Nigerians given the close deadline for registration in June 30 2015.

More findings from the poll revealed that ATM services are the most used form of electronic banking services as indicated by majority of the respondents (68%).

This is followed by 10% of the respondents who indicated they use Mobile Money and this is mostly true for Bank customers in the South-West (19%) and South-South (17%) zones.

Respondents also indicated Point of Sale-(OS) (6%), Internet banking (6%), and Credit Card (2 %) as other electronic banking services used by customers.

Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of bank customers (18%) do not use any of these services mentioned. Nigerians in this category most likely to be senior citizens aged 60 years and above.

And, in an evaluation of critical attributes of ATM and POS as electronic banking services, respondents rated ‘Ease of Use’ and ‘Security’ of ATMs as good with a rating of 4.4 and 4.0 respectively; while rating ‘Proximity’ (3.8), ‘Reliability’ (3.8), ‘Availability’ (3.7) and ‘Resolution Time’(3.5) of ATM  above average.

Similarly, the Ease of Use/Operation of POS received a good rating, while other attributes such as; Security (3.9), Reliability (3.8), Resolution Time (3.5), Proximity (3.8) and Availability (3.7) rated above average. It is significant to note that, Ease of Operation was rated high for both the ATM and the POS while resolution time was rated lowest.