The Bank of Sierra Leone has confirmed in a letter addressed to various financial institutions on the use of National Identity Number as a unique identifier for credit reference.

The letter which was dated on the 7th December, 2022 confirmed that the Identity verification using the National Identity Number (NIN) is now mandatory for account opening, for nationals and non-nationals. Accordingly, the Bank of Sierra Leone Credit Reference Bureau now requires the submission of a verified NIN for credit reference requests.

Following consultations with commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions, the Bank of Sierra Leone has further illustrated that the National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) has agreed to provide E-KYC services for a fee of NLes per verification.

The Bank of Sierra Leone added that the Banks and non-banks will now be required to request the submission of NIN from existing and new customers and must ensure that the NIN is verified and added to their wide database.

The Bank of Sierra Leone will, in due course, communicate the cutoff date, after which customers will not be able to operate their account without a verified NIN.