Fakoyejo OlalekanSterling Bank has been accused by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of breaching the financial regulator’s directive by hoarding the new Naira banknotes from the public.
In a trending video, about N6 million of the redesigned currencies were said to have been allegedly hoarded by one of Sterling Bank’s branches located in Ado-Ekiti.
This was revealed by the Deputy Director of the central bank, Oluwole Owoeye, who scold Sterling Bank for hoarding the new Naira notes against the apex bank’s directive.
Owoeye stated that Sterling Bank’s Auto Teller Machines (ATM) in the aforementioned branch were not dispensing cash despite having about N6 million in its vault.
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The financial regulator had halted the withdrawal of the new Naira notes over the counter in commercial banks, directing Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to instead load their ATMs for the public to withdraw.
Prime Business Africa gathered that the central bank gave the directive to prevent financial institutions from hoarding the new Naira notes from the public and making it available to only politicians.
Although the apex bank has informed banks to resume handing out cash to the public over the counter, as well as through their ATMs.
Sterling Bank risks N1 million fine, as Owoeye said the commercial bank had collected the new Naira notes for over two weeks without dispensing them.
Speaking in the video, Owoeye said: “I am currently at Sterling Bank, on Bank Road as part of the new naira notes monitoring compliance with the guidelines by CBN. They have N6 million, which they collected from the bank for almost two weeks, they have not disbursed any.
“They said they are yet to configure their ATMs, I do not know why that and I have brought attention to the penalty clause of N1 million per day, because they have five ATMs here, they have no reason for keeping this money.
“The zonal service manager, Tunde Onipede promised that by 10:00 am latest tomorrow (Monday), because I told him by latest 10:00 am I’ll be here and I want to see the machine dispensing this money.”
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