Nigerian banks are lamenting about insufficient new naira notes, amid threat by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to sanction banks still issuing the old notes.
The Nigerian public has been complaining that ATMs are still dispensing the old naira notes even as the January 31 deadline, given by the CBN for the old notes to be returned to the banks, draws near.
Yet I was still paid with old naira not from the ATM. Where do we get the new note?
You people got to stop this joke. pic.twitter.com/lxgGDrbjTR
— munachi harry (@munachi_harry) January 20, 2023
The contradicting reality has made the circulation of the newly redesigned naira notes challenging.
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The CBN has repeatedly warned that it will sanction banks caught issuing the old naira notes, while the banks said they don’t have enough to satisfy the current demand.
A banker who spoke on anonymity to Tekedia, said they were only given N4 million of the new notes by the CBN.
“I think the deadline is going to be extended, because right now, banks don’t have enough of the new naira notes to meet the circulation need,” she said.
Meanwhile, the central bank has continued its sensitization workshop across the country to help traders and members of the public to embrace the new naira notes and return the old ones to the banks.
The Branch Controller, Central Bank of Nigeria, Abakaliki Branch, Daniel Amaechi Ogbogu reiterated in Afikpo, Ebonyi State, during the workshop on Friday, that the central bank is not going back on the deadline.
He said the CBN had commenced monitoring banks to ensure they are dispensing the new naira notes in their ATMs, adding that every bank has been given the mandate to circulate the new notes.
“We have asked the banks to ensure that all their ATMs are dispensing new notes and any bank that gives out old naira will be penalized to ensure that no old notes are being dispensed from any ATM point.
“We have called the attention of the banks and we have given them mandate to ensure that we don’t want to come back and see that the ATMs are not dispensing the new naira notes,” he said.
Ogbogu added that the CBN has asked banks to come and pick up the new naira notes, urging the public to report any ATM that is still dispensing the old notes.
However, despite the assurances, feedback from several quarters of the country indicates that the circulation of the new naira notes has been far from sufficient.
“For me the time giving as the last date is short because up till now, the banks are not dispensing the new naira note as far as here is concerned both in the ATM,” the Chairman, Afikpo Market Amalgamated Association, Comrade Johnson Inya-Oka said, calling for the extension of the deadline.
He said that the two banks in Afikpo Local Government Area are yet to start dispensing the new notes.
“If you go to the ATMs here in Afikpo, you can’t get the new naira notes as we speak and that is the challenge we are having. We won’t have much challenge should the CBN be fast in changing the old money.
“Our worry is that the two banks in our area are still giving us old naira notes both at the ATM and counter. But for me I will advise that they extend the dates because the banks in Afikpo are not dispensing the new naira notes and even some aged people in the market here have not seen the new naira note for the first time,” he said.