Nigeria’s financial regulators have intensified their crackdown on banking fraud, with new figures showing a significant jump in the number of Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) flagged for suspicious activity across the country’s lenders.
According to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) 2025 Annual Report, the number of fraud-related BVNs placed on the industry’s watchlist surged by 38.4 percent last year, climbing to 13,117 from 9,476 in 2024.
The figures represent one of the sharpest annual increases recorded since the biometric identity system was introduced in 2014, with banks adding 3,641 new entries to the list over the course of the year.
The Apex Bank was quick to frame the numbers not as a sign of deteriorating security, but as evidence that its fraud detection architecture is working as intended. The report noted that the rise reflected improvement in fraud monitoring and resolution rather than any weakening in the resilience of the financial system.
Alongside the fraud watchlist, the report flagged a related and equally telling statistic: the number of BVNs belonging to deceased persons still sitting active in the system rose by 36.2 percent, from 21,118 in 2024 to 28,754 in 2025.
This category matters for a specific reason. Dormant identities tied to deceased account holders have historically been a soft target for fraudsters, who exploit the gap between a person’s death and the formal deactivation of their financial identity to attempt unauthorized transactions.
The steep rise suggests banks are getting more aggressive about auditing and updating customer records even if it means the raw numbers look worse before they look better.
Even as watchlists expanded, the broader BVN ecosystem kept growing. Total BVN enrolments rose to 67.82 million in 2025, up from 64.40 million the year before, an addition of 3.42 million new registrants, or roughly 5.3 percent growth.
More striking was the growth in linked accounts. The number of bank accounts tied to a BVN jumped by 71.63 million to reach 368.92 million, up sharply from 297.29 million in 2024. Active accounts also grew substantially, rising by 27.66 million to 339.26 million from 311.60 million a year earlier.
Taken together, the CBN said, these numbers point to sustained financial inclusion, improved compliance, and strengthened integrity of the BVN system. Language regulators have used repeatedly to argue that a bigger watchlist and a bigger user base can grow in tandem without one undermining the other.
The 2025 figures land against a backdrop of regulatory tightening that has continued into 2026. In March, the CBN issued an addendum to its Revised Regulatory Framework for Bank Verification Number Operations and Watch-List for the Nigerian Banking Industry, introducing a temporary watchlist under which a flagged BVN may be held for up to 24 hours while the account holder is contacted for clarification.
That circular, signed by Payments System Policy Department director Musa Jimoh, also introduced a minimum enrolment age of 18 and capped changes to phone numbers linked to a BVN to a single amendment, moves explicitly designed to close identity-manipulation loopholes.
The circular further restricted access to the BVN database exclusively to CBN-licensed financial institutions, tightening a system regulators view as the backbone of transaction monitoring, credit tracking, and fraud prevention across Nigeria’s banking industry.
Analysts following the sector will likely read the 2025 figures as a baseline against which the effects of this year’s stricter enrollment and watchlist rules can eventually be measured.
If the CBN’s framing holds, 2026’s numbers should show whether tighter rules translate into fewer new fraud cases or simply into faster detection of existing ones.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Nigeria’s banking sector flagged 38.4% more fraudulent BVNs in 2025 (13,117 vs. 9,476), not because fraud is worsening, but because the CBN’s detection systems are catching more of it.
A bigger watchlist is a sign of stronger oversight, not a weaker financial system. Paired with record growth in BVN enrolments (67.82 million) and linked accounts (368.92 million), the data shows Nigeria’s banking sector is expanding and tightening security at the same time a trend regulators are reinforcing further through 2026’s stricter BVN rules.
