Fakoyejo OlalekanCommercial banks in Nigeria risk sanction from the country’s financial regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), for exclusively dishing out the new naira notes politicians.
In a statement signed by Benedict Maduagwu, the CBN’s Awka-Anambra State Branch Controller, the financial regulator said it will start monitoring redesigned banknote dispensing.
According to Maduagwu, the apex bank will visit commercial banks to ensure compliance with the CBN’s directive that the new naira notes should be made available to the public.
The central bank had fixed January 31, 2023, as deadline for withdrawal of all old banknotes as legal tender. With the deadline close by, banks are still dispensing old notes, notwithstanding that the CBN had directed banks to halt withdrawal of the new currencies over the counter and dispense them through their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
Reacting to the defective circulation and scarcity of the redesigned notes, Maduagwu said financial institutions not dispensing the new currency notes will be sanctioned.
“As from today, the CBN will be sanctioning any commercial bank that is not dispensing new notes to the public.
“We will be visiting commercial banks to ensure that they give out the new naira notes to the public to do their businesses. We will make sure that the new notes made available to banks are not diverted to politicians only,” Maduagwu said.
Recall that the central bank had redesigned the naira to persuade Nigerians to deposit their old naira notes in the banks. It was stated last year that the majority of banknotes in the country were outside banks’ vaults.
Addressing the current naira in circulation, Maduagwu disclosed: “There is hoarding of banknotes by members of the public; Statistics show that 84.71 per cent of currency in circulation are outside the vaults of commercial banks, with only 15.29 per cent in the CBN and commercial banks.”
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