We’ll fine commercial banks not paying out new naira notes – CBN

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Friday, said that any commercial bank that failed to pay the new naira notes to customers would be fined N1 million per money box on daily basis.

CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, made this known at a sensitisation organised for market women operating at Ayegbaju International Market, Osogbo, on the new naira notes, eNaira and other related matters.

Emefiele, represented by a CBN Deputy Director, Mr Adeleke Adelokun, said that the apex bank had printed enough naira notes, but observed that commercial banks were not collecting them.

“As at today, CBN has printed enough new naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000.

“But, what we discovered was that most of the banks that are supposed to collect the new notes have not collected them. So we have put a sanction on the banks.

“Any bank that fails to collect the new notes from CBN will pay N1 million as sanction per box per day and the amount they are to pay now will depend on the number of days they have not collected the notes,” he said.

Emefiele said that the CBN team from Abuja, which had been in Osun since Wednesday, had been going round commercial banks in the state, meeting with their officials to ensure that they were paying out the new naira notes to customers.

He said that the team was at Ayegbaju market to sensitise the market women on the newly-redesigned naira notes and eNaira App as well as how they can subscribe to eNaira for their business transactions.

“We are here to educate you (the market women) on the new Naira notes and the need for you to turn in/deposit your old naira notes on or before Jan. 31 when the notes will cease to be a legal tender,” he said.

In her own remarks, the CBN Branch Controller in Osun, Mrs Madojemu Daphne, said that currency management had faced several challenges, hence the need for the redesign of the naira notes.

“Statistics shows significant hoarding of bank notes by members of the public, with N2.72 trillion out of the N3.26 trillion currency in circulation, as of June 2022, being outside the vaults of commercial banks and supposedly held by members of the public,” she said.

Daphine, who was represented by Mrs Adebayo Omosolape, said that the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes would cease to be legal tender by Jan. 31.

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CBN Information Clients Officer in Osun, Mrs Oluwatobi Rosiji, explained to the market women how to download the eNaira App and operate on their android phones.