Ahead of the June deadline issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for all banks in the country to standardise their customers’ account numbers, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Plc, over the weekend confirmed that it has migrated all its customers’ account numbers to the recommended 10 digits in accordance with the Nigerian Uniform Account Numbering policy (NUBAN), issued by the CBN.

A statement by the bank signed by its Group Head, Corporate Communications, Mr. Kenny Aliu said implementation of NUBAN policy was in line with best practice, and also seeks to reduce the effort and cost that the current use of non-standardized account numbers is costing the financial system.

The bank, while assuring that the standardization of customer’s accounts numbers would not affect banking transactions, explained that current cheque books with customers and Debit Cards are still valid, but that subsequent issuance of cheque-books will bear the new 10 digit number.

It also noted that customers are already being advised of their new account numbers and that the bank’s Contact Centre can be contacted for further enquiries, on 01-2798800 or 0700FCMBMYBANK.

Some benefits of NUBAN according to the directive to banks include enhancement of the activities of the Automated Clearing House (ACH); helping banks to validate customers account numbers before sending out transactions to clearing house and; making it easier for customers to quote their account numbers if they wish because the number of digits are now reduced, among others.

The CBN in the directives to banks also explained that implementing the uniform accounting policy will eliminate most of the complaints currently being experienced during automated direct clearing transaction which include delayed presentation of customer instructions in the Clearing House; late return of unapplied inward Automated Clearing House items; application of inward Clearing House items to wrong accounts and; wrong quotation of customers’ account numbers.