Few days after Sterling Bank defended allegation of hoarding new N200 notes in the vault of its Ekiti branch office, the bank on the evening of Tuesday February 8, 2023, faced similar ‘charges’ at its Abuja regional office and other Federal Capital Territory branches.
Sterling Bank, in a communication with Prime Business Africa, admitted that ICPC invited two of its staff for questioning in respect of the naira hoarding allegation.
READ: Sterling Bank Accused Of Hoarding New Naira Notes, Faces CBN Penalty
Sterling Bank Denies ‘Hoarding’ Millions Of N200 Notes In Ado-Ekiti Vault
The new allegation, this time coming from the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), hinted of the bank deliberately withholding new naira notes from customers, two days away from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) February 10 deadline for return of old notes.
ICPC had, on Tuesday evening, tweeted that it discovered millions of new naira notes in Sterling Bank’s Abuja offices, an allegation the bank denied in a statement it made available to Prime Business Africa.
Sterling Bank Respond ICPC’s Allegations
But the bank in a carefully crafted response to the naira hoarding allegation early Wednesday evening, said it complied with all complied with all guidelines on distribution of redesigned notes from inception to date.
What the bank is saying:
OUR ABUJA REGIONAL OFFICE
This report is developed for the purpose of providing the true representation of events to the narrative as expressed by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) in a tweet late on Tuesday, February 7, 2023.
Background
During the inspection, the monitoring team made inquiries about the details of the cash observed in the vaults. To which the team responded with details of the branch’s ATM and OTC cash disbursement processes.
To our knowledge, all responses provided were satisfactory as no further queries were raised.
The monitoring team promptly left the premises upon concluding the inspection.
About the visit to Sterling Bank, CBD, Abuja
Matters Arising
Sterling deems it necessary to point out the following꞉
The assertion of a “discovery”, as presented in the narrative, is inaccurate and grossly misleading.
Sterling’s Distribution of New Notes
From the commencement of the distribution of the re‑designed denominations, the CBD branch has received the total sum of N1,543,000,000 from the apex bankand paid to customers as summarized below꞉
This was commenced upon receipt of the directive from the regulator to disburse the new notes over the counter ‑ subject to a limit of N20,000 per transaction.
The current balances across the 6 branches in Abuja as at the close of business on February 7, 2023 stood at N178,670,000.
The average vault balances currently held in the six locations is N30m per branch; well below our historical vault balances.
Conclusions
For emphasis, we wish to state that Sterling Bank has complied with all the guidelines on the distribution of redesigned notes from inception to date,” the bank said regarding the naira hoarding allegation.
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