Nigerians lament CBN’s directive banning over-the-counter withdrawal of new notes

Nigerians have lamented the new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) new directives telling Deposit Money Banks not to pay customers making over-the-counter withdrawals of new naira notes again.

The CBN in a circular to banks directed them to load their Automated Teller Machines with only new notes to ensure that the currency circulates across the nation ahead of the January 31st, 2023 deadline when the old notes will no longer be legal tender.

However, as of Friday, the banks had not been able to comply with the directive as they complained of inadequate supply of the new notes, prompting them to load their ATMs with the old notes.

When conducted surveys across many bank branches and ATM galleries on Friday to find out if the CBN directive had been complied with, it was discovered that the majority of them were still dispensing to their customers old notes that would go out of circulation by month end.

PoS operators in Magboro said that they did not have new notes to give to their customers, adding that in a bale of N100,000 they get from the bank, they get only N1,000 new notes.

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At the Ecobank branch inside the Mountain of Fire and Miracles’ Prayer City, Magboro, Ogun State, the ATMs were not dispensing new notes and customers were also being paid old notes over the counter. A teller said the branch did not have new notes to dispense to customers.

An aggrieved customer, Ayotunde Disu, who claimed to have been affected by the situation, said he had been lied to by the tellers for far too long.

Disu said, “I am a PoS operator. They know me here. They promised to give us some level of concession but they have been posting me. I came here on December 30, 2022, and they promised that they would attend to me on January 4, 2023, when they resumed.

“I came here on January 4 and I was shocked when they gave me very dirty notes. I rejected them and protested, and they told me to come back today (Friday). Look at it now. They are telling me to hold on till Monday. I won’t.

“My own problem is that I don’t want to have any old notes with me by the time the deadline is over, which is January 31, 2023.”

Another customer at the banking hall, who did not want to be named, said he was shocked when the teller gave him old notes when he came to cash a cheque.

“I don’t bank here but I came to cash a cheque. They are giving me old notes, which are very dirty. They look like they were taken out of a dungeon. Of course, I rejected them,” he said.

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A customer in the banking hall, Hadiza Ahmed, said he had not laid her hands on the new notes since they were released last year.

“I don’t know if this January 31 deadline is feasible because I haven’t even touched the new naira notes since they were released,” she added.

Many customers who were disgruntled by this and protested to have their notes changed were asked to come back on Monday.

“The tellers said we should come back on Monday. My own fear is that I don’t want to collect these old notes and forget to spend them and they become invalid in my hands,” a customer stated.

A source in a Tier-1 bank, who informed one of our correspondents of the CBN directive on Thursday, said her lender on Thursday issued a memo in that respect to all the branch managers to enforce the CBN order.

The source, who is a manager in one of the bank’s branches in Ikeja, Lagos, however, complained that the new notes were in short supply, hence the branch decided to load a mixture of the old and new N1,000 and N500 notes in the ATMs for customers to withdraw.