Cash-less Policy: CBN considers biometric system for ATM, PoS

CBN Governor, Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi

The Central Bank of Nigeria is considering a biometric authentication system for transactions that will be carried out on Point of Sale Terminals and Automated Teller Machines.

The move is part of measures aimed at strengthening the payment system under the bank’s cash-less policy initiative.

The Governor of the CBN, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, revealed this on Tuesday in Abuja during the sensitisation of stakeholders on the cash-less Nigeria programme.

Sanusi said the biometric system became imperative in order to enable the bank effectively address safety of customers’ funds as well as avoid losses that might arise owing to compromise of Personal Identification Numbers.

He said if approved, the biometric authentication for PoS and ATMs would be implemented in 2015.

The governor said the central bank had taken steps to gain the confidence of ATM users by strengthening the payment system.

For instance, he said going by statistics, fraud incidences through ATMs and PoS had reduced by 90 per cent.

Sanusi said, “The CBN has taken a giant step to gain the confidence of ATM consumers following the circular enforcing migration from Magstripe type of debit card to chip and PIN type of debit card.

“Statistics show that this effort has reduced the fraud incidences by 90 per cent. Many customers are now embracing the use of electronic channels in their transactions because of near impossible efforts of would-be fraudsters in being able to clone debit cards to perpetrate fraud as it was the case during the pre-migration era.”
The Punch