Nigerians may soon experience some relief as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced on Friday that banknotes had been moved from its vaults to commercial banks all around the nation.
This is a planned initiative aimed at facilitating the circulation of banknotes of different denominations. Also, the CBN has ordered all commercial banks to be open on Saturdays and Sundays.
The Acting Director, the Corporate Communications Department of the CBN, Dr. Isa AbdulMumin made this disclosure in Abuja, stating that a substantial amount of money, in various denominations, had been received by the commercial banks for onward circulation to their respective customers.
According to him, the CBN had directed all banks to load their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) as well as conduct physical operations in the banking halls through the weekends.
Read Also: Old Naira Notes Remain Legal Tender Until Dec 31 – CBN
‘Branches of commercial banks will operate on Saturdays and Sundays to attend to customers’ cash needs,’ he noted, adding that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, would personally lead teams to monitor the level of compliance by the banks in various locations across the country.
He, therefore, urged Nigerians to be patient as the current situation would ease soon with the injection of more banknotes into circulation.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the naira redesign programme, an offshoot of the cashless policy, officially kicked off on December 15, 2022 with the unveiling of new ₦200, ₦500, and ₦1,000 notes.
It is designed to moderate cash spending, and tackle terrorism and illicit financial inflows, corruption and other crimes.
The CBN, in its examination of the economy, realised that as at December 2022, ₦2.7 trillion out of ₦3.2 trillion currency in circulation was outside the banks.
It also pegged weekly cash withdrawals by individuals and corporate bodies at N500,000 and N5 million, with effect from January 9.