CBN instructs commercial banks to stop paying out new naira notes over the counter

CENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) officials have instructed commercial banks across the nation not to pay out the new naira mores to customers over the counter so that they have enough to load their automated teller machines (ATM) machines with.

On November 23 last year, the CBN launched redesigned ₦‎200, ₦‎500 and ₦‎1000 banknotes, saying the naira was long overdue to wear a new look. However, there is a chronic scarcity of these new notes, prompting the CBN to introduce restrictions on the amounts that can be withdrawn.

In a bid to combat the shortages which are growing by the day, the CBN has now ordered banks not to pay customers making over-the-counter withdrawals of new naira notes again. Instead, the CBN has directed the banks to load their ATMs with only new notes to ensure that the currency circulates across the nation ahead of the January 31 deadline when the old notes will no longer be legal tender.

As of yesterday, the banks had not been able to comply with the directive as they complained of inadequate supply of the new notes, prompting them to load their ATMs with the old notes. One manager of a bank in Ikeja, Lagos State, complained that the new notes were in short supply, hence why his branch decided to load a mixture of the old and new N1,000 and N500 notes in the ATMs for customers to withdraw.

He added:  “We got a memo from the head office on 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.

“The directive has, however, thrown us into a dilemma as we are in short supply of the new notes and we can’t afford not to load the ATMs as there has been a surge in the number of customers coming to withdraw after the Yuletide holidays. When our bank tested the ATMs, only one denomination of the new notes passed the test of dispensing seamlessly through our machines.

"The bank is working on reconfiguring the ATMs to be able to dispense the new notes. What we have done in my branch is to mix the few new N1,000 and N500 notes available with old ones so that desperate customers can make withdrawals and meet their immediate needs."