Commercial Banks in Nigeria are facing a serious scarcity of the new redesigned naira notes, few days to the January 31, 2023 set by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to phase out the old banknotes of N1000, N500 and N200.
CBN had last week responed to customer’s complaints about the scarcity of the new notes by directing the money banks and other fiancial institutions, OFIs, to stop the on-the-counter dispensing of the redesigned denominations from Monday 8.
The Godwin Emefiele-led apex bank also directed the banks to load their ATMS with the new notes in other to make it available to customers.
In spite of the directive, there is no respite yet as bank customers continue to lament the unavailability of the new notes.
Those who spoke to the magazine on Tuesday said many ATMS are still not dispensing the new notes.
“When I went to my branch today, I thought I will be able to get the new notes, so that I can at least show it to my kids. But, what I got was the old notes some of which are very dirty and smelling,” Bola Iyiola, an engineer in Ikeja said.
Another customer who did not want his name in print told the magazine that “it’s not funny that when I went to the ATM to cash some money today, I was surprised that not even a single new note was among what I got from the machine. I thought the CBN said the new notes will be available on ATMS from Monday this week.”
The customers are wondering why the new notes are yet to circulate when the old banknotes would stop being a legal tender by end of the month.
One of the banks, United Bank for Africa, UBA had earlier in an email informed customers that the new naira noes are now available in all their ATMS across the country.
“We are happy to inform you that the newly redesigned naira notes are now available at all UBA ATMs nationwide,” the commercial bank said in an email to customers, adding that “the maximum daily cash withdrawal limit for these notes at our ATMs is N100,000.”
Speaking on the issue, sources in banks who spoke with the magazine said they are yet to receive supply from the apex bank. They aid the commercial should not be blamed for the problem.
“The problem is not from us. We have not been supplied by the CBN. Apart from this, we also need to reconfigure the ATMS to be able to dispense the new banknotes. There are other logistics we also have to take care of when the new notes eventually arrive. This will take time, but things will get better in matter of days,” a source said.
On its part, a source in another new generation bank said their machine are now dispensing the new notes: ” I can confirm that our ATM machines have been loaded with the new notes,” she said.
Another top source in a bank said “we are currently experiencing scarcity. Besides we have more branches than any other bank in th3 country. I have not seen the new notes myself. I think th3 CBN is trying to manage the supply so that we don’t have too much of it in circulation like we currently have with the old naira notes.”
On Monday, Ahmed Umar, CBN Director, Currency Operations said the apex bank will penalise commercial banks which tried to frustrate it’s efforts to ensure that the new currencies are well circulated, by failing to load their ATMS with the new redesigned notes.
Umar said the purpose of the CBN directive was to implement the January 31 deadline for the withdrawal of old naira notes in circulation.
“We want to use this training session to pass a message that CBN has enough currency notes to go round the general public,” NAN quoted Umar as saying.
“We, CBN management, have mandated banks to stop putting old notes in their ATM machines. They should only put the new notes.
“And there is a serialisation of the policy that they can put either N500, N1000 or N200 note whichever denomination they have or combination of any of those notes, they should just put a new note in their machines.
“We are going to monitor to ensure that the banks comply and if they don’t, we have a penalty for non-compliance.”
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