The federal government through the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria(CIBN) has said that Point-of-Sales (POS) agents and Bank Verification Number agents who do not sit for its exams and get certification will not be permitted to operate in the banking industry.
Fasasi Sarafadeen, a member of the CIBN Committee on Agent Banking made this known on Friday during an interview on Arise TV
The CIBN at its 16th annual conference in Abuja launched agency banking certification for POS, NIN /BVN agents, and agent banking personnel in the banks and fintech space, a move it believes would bring orderliness.
There are over 1.7 million bank agents in Nigeria who handle transactions across the country but a majority of them do not have certification to operate.
The President and Chairman of Council, CIBN, Ken Opara, said agent banking has been the key driver of financial inclusion. He believes that the system needs to be sanitized.
In view of the role bank agents play, Sarafadeen, said that the institute has developed different levels of certifications for POS and other bank agents after experimenting its workability for ten years.
Sarafadeen said, “Agency banking certification is meant to upgrade and equip over 1.7 million existing banking agents in Nigeria. The industry has been yearning for this certification for long.
“You can’t roll out over 1.7 million agents to be handling banking transactions without properly being certified. Agent banking has replaced most of the services in the banking sector today.
“Most of the conventional banks are now shutting down their branches and deploying agents to fill such spaces. That means if there is certification to be customer service in the bank or certification to be in retail banking officer, then agent banking also requires some level of certification.”
The CIBN Committee member added, “There are certain services that have been taken from agent locations because of a lack of compliance, and inadequate knowledge like recently, the enrolment of the NIN was actually suspended from front-end partners which are agents because of infractions, bypass and unauthorized transactions across agent locations.”
He argued further that many untrained agents process transactions of N1m to N2m at a time without taking necessary security precaution.
Sarafadeen explained, “Fraudsters have also identified agent locations as a very soft target to carry out their crime because they know the person there is not doing any due diligence, no book-keeping and no record keeping.
“That is why a lot of agents are landing in police net today because when police are doing their investigations, they terminate such investigation at the agent location because when you get to the agent location and they discover that you don’t have records of the person that cash out or deposited, that will make them stop their investigation at the agent point.
The agent is charged not for the breach of procedure, but for a criminal act that he was not responsible for.”
