CBN Unveils New Directive To Banks Over New Notes Withdrawal

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered Deposit Money Banks to stop paying customers who withdraw fresh naira notes over the counter.

In order to ensure that the money circulates across the country before to the deadline of January 31, 2023, it is understood that the CBN ordered the banks to load their Automated Teller Machines (ATM) with solely fresh notes.

However, as of Friday, Deposit Money Banks were still defying the mandate because they said there weren’t enough of the new notes available.

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According to The PUNCH who interviewed a top-tier bank source, she said her lender on Thursday issued a memo in that respect to all the branch managers to enforce the CBN order.

The memo, which was titled., ‘Urgent update on currency redesign’ and signed by the Group Head, Retail Operation, stated, “The CBN has mandated that we immediately stop the Over-the-Counter payment of the new N200, N500 & N,1000 currency. Instead, all new notes should be loaded into the ATMs for customer withdrawals.

“This is effective immediately please.”

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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 notes.

The source stated, “We got a memo from the head office this morning (Thursday) that we should stop dispensing new notes to customers who come to withdraw over the counter, but instead we should load the ATMs with the new notes. The correspondence from the head office said the directive was from the CBN and that we should implement it immediately.