Awareness of BVN, SIM swap and clone frauds: Methods and controls

Abstract

Bank Verification Number (BVN), SIM swap and SIM clone fraud have become an issue of great concern in Nigeria. It has left banking and telecommunications offices trudging with complaints and many bank customers in pains. The Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced the BVN to prevent corruption, provide a transparent system of payment and effective account monitoring, and to uniquely identify bank customers in order to eliminate any incidence of fraud. Even as banks unilaterally implement this measure, fraudsters are continually devising means of defrauding bank customers of their possessions and evade detection. In this paper, the authors created an awareness on how bank customers are deceived into disclosing their financial details, the methods used in obtaining data for SIM swap and SIM clone, and to sensitize the public on how to prevent unauthorized access to their treasured details.