Commercial banks in Nigeria have posted a positive record in 2016 in the area of new customers coming on board as total accounts domiciling in the banks grew 13.17 per cent in the year. The increase, which amounted to activation of 11.2 million new accounts, catapulted the total number of accounts to 96.22 million as at the end of the year’s Q’4 from 85.02 million accounts in the same period in 2015.
According to the latest industry statistics obtained from the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), the changes recorded in the year also included a rise in the number of redundant accounts in the system.
It is established that bank customers, including corporate bodies and individuals, have abandoned to dormancy an approximated 31 million bank accounts. Whereas, there were only 26.04 million dormant accounts as at December, 2015, representing 30.63 per cent of the total account number of 85.02 million then.