CBN directs banks to start paying new naira notes over the counter
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed commercial banks to start paying the redesigned naira notes to customers over the counter.
In a statement on Thursday, Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, said the new directive was to alleviate the challenges that Nigerians are experiencing with getting access to the new notes, as well as reduce queues at the automated teller machines (ATMs) nationwide.
In the statement from CBN’s Director Corporate Communication Osita Nwanisobi, explained banks can only pay N20,000 of the new notes over the counter per day to individuals.
The statement reads: “The Govenor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has directed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to commence the payment of the redesigned Naira notes over the counter, subject to a maximum daily payout limit of N20,000”.
To ensure the effective distribution of the newly introduced naira banknotes, the CBN urged Nigerians “to exercise patience as the CBN is working assiduously to address the challenge of queues at ATMs”.
Speaking to the long queues at ATM points, Nwanisiobi lamented the queues at ATMs across the country “and an upward trend in the cases of people stocking and aggregating the newly introduced banknotes”.
He said these people “serially obtain cash from ATMs for reasons best known to them. Also worrisome are the reported cases of unregistered persons and non-bank officials swapping banknotes for members of the public, purportedly on behalf of the CBN”.
