Four commercial banks in Nigeria have released details of more than 321,000 dormant accounts following a directive issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The development has sparked reactions from economists and financial stakeholders, with concerns raised over customer privacy, account reactivation processes, business closures, and communication between banks and customers.
The affected dormant accounts belong to individuals, companies, churches, cooperatives, clubs, associations, and small businesses that have remained inactive for over 10 years.
The banks involved include Access Bank, Union Bank of Nigeria, Stanbic IBTC Bank, and Fidelity Bank.
The publication followed the CBN’s July 2024 Guidelines on the Management of Dormant Accounts, Unclaimed Balances and Other Financial Assets. Under the guideline, financial institutions are required to publish dormant account details at least six months before the funds become eligible for transfer into the apex bank’s Unclaimed Balances Trust Fund Pool Account.
An analysis of the published data showed that Access Bank disclosed 243,934 dormant accounts, Stanbic IBTC released 26,135 dormant accounts, Fidelity Bank published about 61,900 dormant accounts, while Union Bank listed 212 dormant and unclaimed accounts inactive for 10 years and above.
Combined, the four banks disclosed approximately 321,181 dormant accounts.
Further breakdown of Access Bank’s records revealed 122,390 individual accounts and 120,718 corporate accounts, reflecting an almost equal split between personal and business-related dormant accounts.
Fidelity Bank’s records showed a stronger concentration of inactive corporate accounts. The register, spanning hundreds of pages, reportedly contained about 48,900 corporate dormant accounts and roughly 13,000 personal dormant accounts.
The inactive accounts cut across sectors including oil and gas, logistics, hospitality, pharmaceuticals, marine operations, schools, churches, SMEs, and informal businesses.
Major business districts such as Idumota, Oyingbo, Allen Avenue, Awolowo Road, and Ladipo in Lagos reportedly recorded large clusters of dormant accounts, alongside Port Harcourt oil-service hubs and northern commercial centres.
Union Bank’s list, though smaller, consisted largely of cooperatives, alumni associations, women’s groups, churches, clubs, and community unions across Nigeria.
Stanbic IBTC’s dormant accounts register, which reportedly exceeded 1,500 pages, showed high concentrations of inactive accounts in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Maiduguri. Most of the accounts were current accounts, including salary and joint accounts.
Meanwhile, some major banks adopted alternative approaches. United Bank for Africa maintained an unclaimed dividend list instead of publishing dormant accounts, while First Bank of Nigeria and Zenith Bank introduced dedicated online portals for customers to check affected accounts.
Guaranty Trust Bank published dormant account management guidelines without attaching an account list, while Ecobank Nigeria provided dormant account reactivation services without publicly releasing a dormant accounts register.
Reacting to the development, Director of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Muda Yusuf, said the directive exposed gaps in customer communication within the banking sector.
“I think it’s more about getting the banks to communicate a lot more with their customers because if the CBN is compelling them to publish, it’s a communication issue,” Yusuf said.
“So, the bank needs to do a lot more to get in touch with its customers. This is a customer service issue, actually, to know what exactly is happening, why they are not active in their accounts, what they can do to resuscitate their accounts.”
He also linked the increase in dormant business accounts to worsening economic conditions and the growing collapse of small and medium-scale enterprises.
“The mortality rate of businesses has grown significantly. When you are running a business, you have an account, and the business collapses because of a whole lot of issues. You just walk away from everything,” he said.
“The economic situation and the high rate of business mortality, especially among micro-enterprises, small businesses, and even medium-sized businesses, are also factors.”
Yusuf further criticised the complicated process required to reactivate dormant accounts.
“We need to simplify as much as possible the process of resuscitating dormant accounts,” he said. “If I have my ID card, I will give you my name. I have my BVN. I have my NIN. Why are you asking me for the NEPA bill?”
He also called for reforms that would make it easier for families of deceased account holders to access funds left behind.
“It’s not fair for the families of people who have died to have huge amounts of money in their accounts, and they cannot access it,” he said. “We have to simplify the process. The process is very, very bureaucratic.”
Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Uyo, Akpan Ekpo, questioned the need for publicly disclosing dormant account holders.
“The Central Bank has examiners who can go to a bank and ask for accounts and know what they have to do without making it public,” Ekpo said.
“For me, it bothers me about privacy. Because if you publish that person A has a dormant account, it doesn’t look good in terms of the environment we are living in. You can expose the person.”
Former President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Gabriel Idahosa, also raised concerns over privacy and possible legal disputes.
“Ordinarily, the central bank should not do that because of the privacy doctrine in the relationship between the customer and the bank,” Idahosa said.
“A lawyer or a group of lawyers, or even civil society organisations, can go to court to prevent the central bank from doing so.”
He added that dormant accounts could result from bank mergers, deaths, relocations, abandoned businesses, and customers giving up on small balances due to stressful recovery procedures.
Under the 2024 guidelines, the CBN stated that dormant accounts and unclaimed balances had become vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
The apex bank noted that eligible balances include savings accounts, current accounts, domiciliary accounts, prepaid card wallets, stale drafts, unclaimed salaries, deposits for shares, and other abandoned financial assets inactive for at least 10 years.
The CBN also directed banks to regularly notify account holders through emails, text messages, and letters while maintaining proper audit trails and quarterly reports.
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