NIN Verification Portal Outages Frustrate Banks and Telecoms

The ongoing outages on the NIN verification portal have caused banks and telecom firms (telcos) to be frustrated with the disruption to their services.

Despite the National Identity Management Commission’s (NIMC) guarantee that the issue had been fixed, the NIN Verification platform’s outage, which began the previous week, continued over the weekend.

Banks reported difficulties connecting new account holders to their NINs due to the NIN verification outage, and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) reported similar difficulties connecting customers’ SIM cards to their NIN records.

The Nigerian Immigration Service has also been impacted by the issue, which has caused delays in passport processing for applicants who are unable to finish the necessary verification procedures.

“NIN verification or something has been down since last week,” the CEO of a well-known e-payment company based in Lagos told Vanguard, speaking anonymously about the development and its negative effects on the banking sector. SIM card activation is prohibited nationwide. Is this only internally generated revenue, or is it an essential piece of national infrastructure?

In Enugu, we are presently testing our smart mobility service and system. Our 4G connectivity nodes in each of our cars cannot be turned on. We have been unable to move forward, and regrettably, there are no other networks available.
‘
“We have no choice but to perform dry runs and borrow SIM cards. The telecom companies claim that the NIN verification portal’s malfunction is to be blamed for their inability to activate SIM cards.

Many of the banks in Abuja were visited by a Vanguard correspondent, who confirmed that many of them are still struggling with the backlog of verifications. An employee of a Guaranty Trust Bank branch in Wuse 2, who spoke on condition of anonymity, admitted that the issue has continued since last week, preventing many clients from opening new accounts or using their current services.

Indeed, since last week, we have been facing significant difficulties with NIN verification. This problem prevents us from opening new accounts or even from accessing the accounts of some customers. An employee for a bank replied, “Our work has slowed down significantly.” “This has to be resolved immediately by those in charge because it is having a detrimental impact on both the economy and people.”

Customers were also seen standing in lines at Zenith Bank in the Federal Secretariat, awaiting the restoration of service. “Since last week, NIN verification has remained a big issue,” the staff verified the continuous difficulties. The sooner the better, but we don’t know when they will deal with it. Our customers, whose livelihoods depend on our services, are now being impacted, in addition to ourselves.
Not all banks, though, reported issues. Employees at the Federal Secretariat’s Access Bank said that their work had been mainly unaffected. Precious, a branch employee, stated, “We have been opening new accounts since the morning without any issues, but there may be issues with NIN verification elsewhere.”

Service providers in the telecom industry also verified interruptions. Mariam Yusuf, a staff member at an MTN office on Lagos Street in Garki 2, stated that SIM registration and linking had been delayed since last week due to their inability to authenticate NINs. Since last week, we have been battling this issue, and no solution has been found.

We have not seen any outcomes despite NIMC’s claims that they are working on it. For other service providers, the circumstances are the same,” she continued. The situation was the same at the Abuja offices of Globacom and Airtel.

NIMC has advised Nigerians to utilize tokenization, an alternate to verification approach, in response to the public’s mounting annoyance. This procedure, which is intended to improve data security and privacy, enables some services to confirm a user’s identity without disclosing their NIN directly.

Adoption is still murky, though. Numerous organizations and users are either ignorant of the possibility or unsure of how to put the innovative solutions into practice.

The reaction of NIMC in relation to the matter in a statement is “we have ongoing technical issues in our system,” a NIMC staff member told Vanguard on condition of anonymity, despite the fact that attempts to contact Dr. Kayode Adegoke, the organization’s official spokesperson, were fruitless.

To alleviate the burden on millions of citizens and organizations that depend on the system, NIMC said in a statement on Friday that it has finished the technical repair exercise that had interrupted services.

“We appreciate the understanding and cooperation of Nigerians as we worked to ensure a swift return to normalcy,” the NIMC release said.

Though the disruption might persist – Telcos, however, the Vanguard investigation showed that NIMC had actually switched its previous software provider to a new one, requiring the telecom operators to immediately migrate over to the new platform without prior consultation, in contrast to the assertion of routine maintenance. According to certain telecoms who talked to Vanguard under anonymity, the NIMC action was akin to an ambush and significantly hampered their business operations.

“In a reasonable world, before this kind of thing occurs, the banks and telcos should be given enough notice and the justification for switching vendors should be made clear. If there are any inputs, we can make them.” One of the telecoms told Vanguard, “But here, we were forced to accept Bluesalt-a new and an alternative vendor, whether we like it or not; and that is not good.”

The Association of Licensed Telecom Operators in Nigeria (ALTON), the telcos’ umbrella organization, confirmed the aforementioned development in a statement. It clarified that NIMC was to blame for the frustrations subscribers were experiencing when completing transactions, such as replacing lost SIM cards or activating new ones, because of a supposedly technical maintenance exercise.

“The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) wishes to inform the general public, our valued subscribers, and all stakeholders of a temporary disruption affecting SIM-related services across all mobile networks in Nigeria,” read a portion of the statement jointly signed by the association’s chairman and publicity secretary, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo and Damian Udeh, respectively.

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) recently ordered the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) members to switch to a new identity verification technology, which is what caused this inconvenience. Unexpected technical issues brought about by the migration process are now compromising service availability across the country. These issues immediately affect real-time identity verification, which is necessary for SIM registration, SIM replacement, Mobile Number Portability (MNP), and other associated services.

Unfortunately, the change has temporarily affected MNOs’ capacity to provide seamless SIM-related services, even though the new platform is meant to improve the integrity and effectiveness of identity management in Nigeria.

MNOs won’t be able to provide SIM-related services like SIM swapping, SIM replacement, and new subscriber activation during this time. We recognize that millions of subscribers rely on these services for everyday activities, business, and communication, and we recognize the difficulty this may create. We deeply regret the inconvenience and respectfully request that subscribers wait until further notice before visiting service centres to complete SIM-related transactions.

ALTON is dedicated to making sure that all Nigerians have access to reliable, secure, and high-quality telecommunications services, and it will keep providing timely information as the situation changes.