The Central Bank of Nigeria has denied reports claiming that bank verification numbers (BVN) expire after 10 years.
According to a press release issued on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, Isa AbdulMumin, Acting Director, Corporate Communications stated that details captured during the BVN exercise are permanent, although the CBN provides for the modification of records.
Part of the press statement reads, "We wish to clarify that the BVN issued in Nigeria has no expiry date. Once a customer’s biometrics have been captured and enrolled in the database of NIBSS, the BVN remains for life.
However, the Regulatory Framework for BVN issued by the CBN in 2021 stipulates that customers can only change their records due to certain conditions spelt out in the document and after being cleared by relevant authorities."
Although the CBN denies that BVNs do expire, the report about a ten-year expiry date comes from a document by the CBN that stated that customers are required to re-enrol for BVN after ten years.
While this page is no longer available on the CBN's website, a search of the URL on the Wayback Machine, a web archive, turns up an FAQ document that corroborates the report about the BVN expiry date. Similarly, a search for the BVN FAQ page of a commercial bank shows the same information.
