Nigeria’s central bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele stated that the CBN has called on banks to pick up the new naira notes and even waived some of the conditionality for accessing it.
This was disclosed by Emefiele on Wednesday who was represented by Mr. Kofo Salam-Alada, Director, Legal Services Department, on a sensitisation tour on redesigned naira notes at Computer Village, Ikeja in Lagos.
CBN said Banks were given slots before, but now it is bending over backwards to accommodate their demands.
Waiver: Emefiele revealed CBN approached banks to pick up new notes and waved conditions to accessing the redesigned currency.
- “We have been calling upon the banks to approach the Central Bank of Nigeria across the country to come and pick up the new notes; we have even waived some of the conditionality for accessing currency notes to accommodate the banks.
- “The banks were being given slots before, but now the Central Bank of Nigeria is bending over backwards to accommodate the demands of the banks to service them so that they can service you and so that everybody will have access to the new naira notes.”
ATMs: The Central Bank Governor also revealed that it is monitoring the use of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) to ensure that they stopped paying customers the new naira notes over the counter but via the ATMs. He said:
- “Part of what we are doing is that we have monitors going around the banks now, I have been to some ATMs this morning and I’ve lodged a report and I’ve spoken to the management of the various banks.”
He added that penalties await any bank which failed to come and pick up the new notes and failure to lodge money into their ATMs, urging traders to call these numbers- 08176657641, 08176657642, 08176656721, 07080650791, and send messages to [email protected], should they have any problem accessing the new notes, as there is no going back on the January 31st deadline.
What you should know
The CBN said the plan to introduce new designs of the N200, N500, and N1,000 is advertised as a means of bringing currency from outside the banking system into the banking system, thereby making monetary policy more effective in combating inflation.
Some primary reasons cited included significant banknote hoarding, a scarcity of clean and fit banknotes, and the increasing ease with which banknotes could be counterfeited.
Findings by Nairametrics Research have shown that old N1000 and N500 notes are still being dispensed by some banks’ ATMs.
Meanwhile, the commercial banks have complained that the new naira notes are not enough to meet customers’ demands.
