CBN refunds N26.998bn to commercial bank customers

Over N26.998 billion has been refunded to bank customers whose accounts were illegally charged by their respective financial institutions as at April 2016 and over 6,00o complaints resolved by the Consumer Protection Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The department disclosed this while meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress at the weekend.

Reacting to the statement, Vice President, NLC, Isa Aremu, lauded the effort of the apex bank in getting the money back. He also commended federal government’s stance on job safety. “Very importantly one critical discussion that came up is the issue of job lay-offs in the banks and we use this opportunity to commend the ministry of labor for intervening and asking the bank to stop the ongoing lay-offs in the sector. And we have also called on CBN to use moral suasion to encourage the commercial banks.”

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Aremu while commenting on the naira devaluation debate said: “We have been together with CBN in terms of resisting the pressure to devalue the naira and we are happy that CBN under the leadership of Governor Godwin Emefiele has stood the ground to protect the naira.”

“There were debates about the value of the naira and NLC has insisted that as a country that is import dependent, we don’t benefit anything from devaluation and above all, any devaluation would erode the purchasing power of workers.|

“We are happy that the CBN has kept to that fit in with the broad policy of the CBN as we’ll as the administration. We also needed clarification on what this flexible exchange rate means for us and he said the modalities are still worked out. But the bottom line is that it would not do prejudice to the value of the naira,” he said.