The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered all commercial banks to load their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) with the newly redesigned naira notes to enhance quick circulation of the currency ahead of the January 31, 2023, deadline.
The apex bank also directed banks to henceforth stop over-the-counter withdrawals of new naira notes to customers.
Recall that CBN had announced earlier that beginning from February 1, 2023, the old naira notes will no longer be acceptable as legal tender in the country.
In a memo issued by one of the CBN to all the branch managers, it said that the implementation of the order must take immediate effect.
Part of the memo reads: “The CBN has mandated that we immediately stop the Over-the-Counter payment of the new N200, N500 and N,1000 currency. Instead, all new notes should be loaded into the ATMs for customer withdrawals.
“This is effective immediately please,” the memo reads.
Truth Live News gathered that as of the time of filing in this report, the banks had not been able to comply with the directive as they complained of inadequate supply of the new notes, prompting them to load their ATMs with the old notes.
According to a manager of one of the commercial bank’s branches in Ikeja, Lagos, “the new notes were in short supply, hence the branch decided to load a mixture of the old and new N1,000 and N500 notes in the ATMs for customers to withdraw.
“We got a memo from the head office this morning (Thursday) that we should stop dispensing new notes to customers who come to withdraw over the counter, but instead we should load the ATMs with the new notes. The correspondence from the head office said the directive was from the CBN and that we should implement it immediately.
“The directive has, however, thrown us into a dilemma as we are in short supply of the new notes and we can’t afford not to load the ATMs as there has been a surge in the number of customers coming to withdraw after the Yuletide holidays.
“Loading of ATMs is the responsibility of the banks. When our bank tested the ATMs, only one denomination of the new notes passed the test of dispensing seamlessly through our machines. The bank is working on reconfiguring the ATMs to be able to dispense the new notes. What we have done in my branch is to mix the few new N1,000 and N500 notes available with old ones so that desperate customers can make withdrawals and meet their immediate needs.
“If you observed, a lot of ATMs were inactive during the Christmas and New Year holidays. The idea was not to give out old notes, but unfortunately, the new ones are not in circulation. The banks have a mandate to evacuate N1bn old notes each to the CBN on a daily basis and our head office has set a strict vault limit or cash holding limit for each branch, which on no condition we must exceed,” he said.
Meanwhile, a senior official of the CBN, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment on the issue, confirmed that the apex bank indeed issued the directive to the banks.
He said, “From this weekend, new notes will be available for disbursement to bank customers. We are pushing the N1,000 and N500 notes through the ATMs for now. The N200 will be available later.
“The aim is to check inflation and currency abuse. A research was conducted and it showed that the demand for the N1,000 and N500 is higher, hence the decision to start with them,” he added.