46.7 Million Nigerian Bank Accounts Dormant

Data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, indicated that
the number of dormant/inactive bank accounts rose by 28 percent to 46.7 million in 2018 from 36.7 million in 2017.

Additional 10 million bank accounts were abandoned and left dormant, in 2018, plausibly due to economic hardship caused by sluggish economic growth, rising job losses and reduction in purchasing power occasioned, by double digit inflation.

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines on dormant accounts, “an account shall become inactive if there has been no customer or depositor-initiated transaction for a period of six months after the last customer or depositor initiated transaction.”

Bank customers abandon their accounts for other various reasons such as:

1.Dissatisfaction/Poor service from affected banks
2.Relocation
3.Cashflow challenges
4.Temporary usage-some contractors are forced to open accounts by contractees, in banks which they hitherto were not patronizing. And once they receive one-off payment, the accounts are consequentially abandoned.