The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Thursday sensitized Abians on the new naira notes, stating that there is a high level of compliance by the commercial banks in Abia and Abians in general.
Addressing Abians at Aba, particularly Ariaria traders, the CBN Director, Corporate Communications Department, Abuja Osita Nwanisobi informed Abians at Aba that the exercise was to create awareness on the re-design of the N200, N500 and N1000 notes which he said will remain legal tenders untill 31st January, 2023.
The CBN he said will and has continued to monitor and evaluate what commercial banks are doing with the new notes allocated to them and their compliance with the policy which include dispensing the new notes through ATMs and not paying over the counter.
According to him, the CBN was in the state “to engage all, educate and explain why the CBN re-designed the notes and to elicit responses which will be addressed adequately”.
He explained that the CBN redesigned the notes as there are too much cash outside the banking system, stating that of the N3.26 trillion in circulation, N2.76 or 84% is outside the banking system.
Managing cash, Nwanisobi said is expensive, hence the need for cashless banking, adding “we are trying to encourage people to do little with cash.
“There are other payment channels people can use within the cashless policy, including POS, e-money, internet and mobile banking. We have 1.4 million agents who are also supervised by Super Agents”.
He highlighted some challenges to include some ATMs not having the new notes, assuring, “CBN has enough new notes and will rank up the new notes”.
He further disclosed that as at Wednesday, banks in the state have collected their quota of the new notes, and warned, “Any bank that is erring and didn’t come to collect their allocation will be sanctioned. As we push out new notes, we are withdrawing the old ones” and educated the people on the security features to enable them identify fake new currencies.
After monitoring some banks in Aba, he expressed his satisfaction that there are high level of compliance, adding, “there is no record of hoarding by banks in the state as we have records of allocation and loading into ATMs. We are doing reconciliation”.
Also speaking, the Umuahia Branch Controller of the CBN, Olaoba Ayotunde informed that the redesignation of the naira periodically is contained in the Act that established the CBN, pointing out that the exercise will curb some crimes like kidnapping, and regretted that many people are adamant about the exercise.
However, some Aba traders, including the Chairman, Ariaria Market Traders, Elder Emeka Igara and Chima Eke, while commending the CBN for that initiative, called for the expansion of daily withdrawal limits.
They also urged the CBN to consider the extension of deadline “to enable the evacuation of the old notes that may be coming from the rural people.
