The Central Bank of Nigeria has reportedly suspended the provision of the BVN validation service to all fintech and third-party partners in the country.
This was made known in an email from Paystack to customers which stated, “We’ve recently been made aware of a regulatory directive from the primary custodian of Nigeria’s BVN service to all their partners to suspend the provision of the BVN validation service to their third-party partners. This directive affects every non-bank in Nigeria that offers BVN Validation services. In light of this news, we’re hereby informing you that the BVN Resolve service will be temporarily unavailable starting at midnight, April 8, 2021.”
This suspension could mean that non-banks will have to look for alternative ways to carry out identity verification (KYC) for their users through NIN, Voters ID, Driver’s license etc
This is another regulatory move by the apex bank to stifle innovation, according to experts.
The CBN early this year banned all crypto currency related activities from official banking channels.
In Nigeria, the fintech space has raised over $600m in the last five years.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also banned Bamboo, Chaka among others according to Tosin Olugbenga, a Software and Blockchain Engineer.
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