By Babajide Komolafe, Amaka Abayomi & Temple Nneji

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) assumed that all banks’ customers watch television or listen to radio, and those who don’t, read newspapers. So it believed that with advertisement campaign in the television, radio and newspapers, one month would be enough to get all of them to go to their banks and update their account information.

This is notwithstanding that the one month falls within the yuletide period, which is characterised with busyness of shopping and travelling. So, on November 29th, 2010, it directed all banks’ customers to update their account information latest by December 31st otherwise they would not be able to access their accounts and by extension the money therein ?

By January 31st, it became obvious to the management of the apex bank that these assumptions were presumptuous.  Consequently, the apex bank granted a one month extension till end of February. Investigation however real that there would be need for further extension and there are other factors that must be addressed for further extension to work.

The first factor is awareness. A lot of banks’ customers are not yet aware of the account information update exercise. And some interviewed by Vanguard do not even understand what it means.

Tayo Aderinokun, Aig-Imoukhuede, Access Bank GMD.; GTBank GMD; Philip Oduoza, UBA GMD; Mallam Sanusi Lamido, CBN Governor and Jibril Aku, Ecobank MD

“I have not heard about it before, can you please tell me more I mean how does it  go, what’s the essence’. Mr Segun, a customer of Oceanic Bank, said

Similarly, Miss Destiny, customer of  First Bank said, ‘I have heard of something like before but I don’t know how to go about it, my bank did not tell me anything of such or even send SMS alert, so I don’t think it is serious’. Also,  a customer of Intercontinental Bank Miss Lilian said, “Which one is account updating, they did not tell me so I don’t think it’s going to affect my account, I don’t know anything about it’.

In the words of Mr. James Nedu, a UBA account holder, “I didn’t know about the account update till I went to send money to my cousin and I was asked to fill the form”.

The reason for the low awareness is not far fetched. In a country where power supply is very low, and many survive on less that $2 a day, very few have the luxury of watching television, listen to radio or listen newspapers and in the process see the advisement campaign of the CBN.

This fact is aggravated by the little or no effort of banks to inform and enlighten their customers about the exercise. A cursory survey of most banks’ branches confirms this. There is no sign, banner, or anything to attract the attention of customers that such exercise is going on.

Neither did the banks send SMS as one would expect in this case. Some sent email but an SMS would have been better.

According, Mr. Sola Ogundipe,  a media practitioner, “The campaign by CBN is not enough because the customers don’t bank with CBN but with banks, the banks should have send SMS text to their customers and emails”.

Thus the banks are critical to addressing the challenge of low awareness about the exercise.    The CBN needs to mandate all the banks to have sizable banners conspicuously displayed in their banking halls and a desk dedicated to attending to customers in this regard. This must be complimented with SMS text at least once a week or every time a transaction notification text is sent to the customer.

Another factor relating to awareness is understanding of the process or modality required to update account information. There is confusion as to whether the customer have to do it in the branch where his/her account is domiciled or any branch of the bank. Some banks allow customers to do the update in any branch while insist it must be at the branch where the account is domiciled. The CBN needs to clarify this issue.

But considering the fact that many customers have changed location and hence may now be living or are now based far from where the branch where their account is domiciled, it is imperative to allow customers do the update in any branch of their bank. In fact this flexibility would hasten response to the directive and its overall success.

Also, some customers just consider the exercise a waste of time. An example is , Mr. Jubril Aminu, a customer of  FirstBank, considers the update a  waste of time and resources by the  CBN.

“The directive by the CBN is useless because it makes no sense for me to update my account with my bank. I think it will be meaningful for people that have changed phone numbers or moved houses, but not for me as I have done none of those. Besides, my account officer knows me and knows I can’t carry out any fraudulent act.”

Another customer with the same attitude is Mr. Ben Okwe, a customer of Diamond Bank. He said updating his account details is not his priority.  “Look, the crowd at the banks is crazy and I can’t imagine myself going to queue there just because I want to update my account details.

Besides all they need to know about me is in the account opening forms I filled, which is still valid.”

For these category of banks’ customers, the natural tendency for the CBN and banks is to ignore them, believing that when their accounts are suspended they would comply. But, should these constitute a significant percentage of banks’ customers, the chaos that would follow suspension of their accounts after the deadline have expired might undermine confidence in the banking system.

Investigation however reveals that majority of banks’ customers believe in the necessity of the exercise. They however query the duration.  “Why the hurry”, asked Ogundipe. “Something as important as this should be given about six months for customers to do”, he suggested

And that is a critical point  the CBN needs to acknowledge. An important exercise as updating account information needs not to be rushed. Off course,  except  there are some other reasons beyond the Know Your Customer (KYC) purpose for which it was designed. And should such there be such reasons the CBN would do well to let banks’ customers know.