t with a zero balance which I have abandoned.

 

account.

“I have an account with a zero balance find which I have abandoned. If I have the money I will credit the account. The money is not enough to feed talk-less of saving it in the bank”, he told Financial Vanguard.

Economic downturn

“The factors mainly responsible fo house r the rise in inactive bank accounts are economic downturn/business failures and inactivity on salary accounts due to loss of job,” said FirstBank in response to Financial Vanguard enquiries.

Last year, the National Bureau of v v business Statistics reported that the number of unemployed Nigerians rose by 3.3 million to 20.3 million in the third quarter of 2018 (Q3’18) compared to third quarter of 2017 (Q3’17).

This, according to Uju Ogubunka, President of Bank Customers Association of Nigeria (BCAN) will definitely lead to inactivity in bank accounts.

“The current situation where people are being laid off is responsible. If your job stops and you have been depending on your salary; now if your salary is not coming in, whatever you get, you just use it to oil your daily need. That can warrant inactivity in account,” he told Financial Vanguard.

This is aptly illustrated by the story of Makinde Wakil, Managing Director B2SM Management Services Limited, who had to abandon his corporate bank account due to economic downturn.

He said: “I have a personal account and I also had a corporate account between 2010 and 2015. If I print my bank statement you will see inflow and outflow of funds and the e-payment transactions because we dealt with multinational companies at that time and their payments didn’t come within the country, they paid from their head office abroad.

“We worked round the clock when there was business. We paid salaries; we also had other subsidiary companies under us. The business was at its peak by that time but thereafter from mid 2015 there was no business activity happening in the company.