BVN is short for bank verification number or Biometric verification number. It is the 11 digit number that acts as your universal ID in all banks in Nigeria. The BVN is required for some services in the bank. If you want to request for a new ATM in the bank, you will be asked to provide your BVN. If you want to make any amendment to your bank account, you must provide your BVN before it can be initiated. Nowadays, virtually any service, other than simple transactions, in the bank requires BVN before one can access it. The BVN is for security purposes and therefore needed for almost any service in the bank.

There is just one BVN for one person. You are not required to have double BVN number. If you did your BVN at GTbank or any other bank, you are not required to register another BVN when opening account in another bank.

How to Check your BVN with your phone
You can check or retrieve your BVN with your phone. It is very simple. To check your BVN, you need the mobile number you used when you did you Biometric verification and at least N100 airtime in the sim. You cannot check it with any other mobile number. Now, with the mobile number, dail *565*0#. It will show you your BVN.

Note: The code mentioned above can be used to check GTbank BVN, FirstBank BVN, Access Bank BVN or another bank’s BVN. And the code can be used on all telecommunication networks (MTN, Airtel, Etisalat and Glo) in Nigeria.