The Nation||The National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS) has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to introduce account number portability in the banking industry to reduce the stress people pass through in the process of banking formally.
Its President, Deolu Ogunbanjo said if the CBN introduces the scheme, it will make operators in the banking sector to sit up to the challenge of providing the requisite infrastructure that will ease the provision of banking services to the customers.
According to him, the scheme has been introduced in other climes and recorded a measure of success, arguing that the CBN should give it a shot in the interest of the millions of bank customers in the country who are busy opening multiple account numbers because of the inefficiencies of their banks.
He said:
“I know some people who use just one line and have taken advantage of the scheme to dump their inefficient service providers. I know someone who actually ported because he felt he was being unfairly treated by his service provider in the area of data provision.
“There is something subscribers call porting shivers. They call the customers care line and say if you don’t answer my request in the next two hours, I am going to port. So it sends shivers down the spines of the network operators particularly if the customer is a high networth user,”
“I had a case of a particular subscriber who spends almost a N100,000 every month. A very busy person and he felt he was being short-changed. He now says he wants to port. The matter is being resolved but before MNP, they would have said it doesn’t matter, its network problem and give him all manners of excuses. They have always known him with that subscriber identity module (SIM), so MNP will allow him to switch over to another service provider and retain his number. So, it is a fantastic freedom given the subscribers. You must also not forget that the porting shivers have led to massive investment in the sector. So, it is a win-win situation. The same situation will apply to the banking sector if account number portability is introduced.”
