Customers besiege Banks for last hour withdrawer

By Osifo Godfrey

Just a day to Christmas, Commercial banks in Lagos are beginning to witness massive patronage as customers rush to make last minute withdrawal of cash in preparation the celebration.

Some of the Automated Teller Machines [ATM] visited by our correspondents observed a huge crowd. The situation is not totally different in the banking halls of most of the banks as customers have one complaints or the other concerning their accounts in other to complete their transaction.

The rush for cash is not unconnected to the three day public holidays declared abruptly by the Federal Government to mark the Muslim festival, Christmas and the Boxing-day.

Mr. Paul lamented his inability to use the ATM card to do withdrawer due to the crowd and ineffective network ‘’the bank was opened to customers by 8.30 am, but this crowd was already here.’’ For some time now, bank operations have been gripped with crowd at First Bank, UBA, Oceanic Bank, Intercontinental and GTBank branches in Ikotun-Iyana-Ipaja axis of Lagos. There were also crowds at Zenith and Keystone Bank branches in high-brow areas of Ikeja and Maryland.

Meanwhile, the inability of most of bank customers to complete their Bank Verification Numbers [BVN] is also a problem that most bank customers have to deal with this yuletide.

A lot of customers have their cash trapped in their banks because of BVN related issues. In early October, banks had about 26 million of customers’ accounts frozen because of the inability to complete their registration. Though process is continuous according to the Central Bank of Nigeria. ‘’I have not been able to do any withdrawer with my ATM due to BVN problem’’ Osaro said in desperation to get cash for the celebration.