The Central Bank of Nigeria has directed banks operating in the country to accept deposit of cheques into savings account.

The CBN also told the banks to commence the embedding of Bank Verification Number on payment cards.

These were contained in a circular by the apex bank on Tuesday.

The circular, signed by the Director, Banking and Payments System Department, Dipo Fatokun, and dated July 28, 2016, was sent to all banks and financial institutions.

It read: “The CBN in furtherance of its efforts at strengthening the Nigerian payments system hereby issues the following directives:

“The removal of fixed interest rate on credit cards; Discontinuation of actual address verification in account opening for customers with customers with the BVN; Banks should begin to embed BVN biometric data in payment cards issued henceforth, to facilitate offline BVN verification and biometric based customer authentication on such payment devices as Automated Teller Machines, ATMs, Point of Sales Terminals, POS, Kiosks, etc.

“Approval of BVN Watch-listing modalities and release by CBN of necessary Credit Risk Management System (CRMS) data, to facilitate its use for enriching the BVN watch-list; savings account customers with BVN should be allowed to deposit cheques worth not more than N2,000,000.00 (Two million naira) into their accounts, per customer, per day.”