Instead, the apex bank directed the banks to load their Automated Teller Machines with only new notes to ensure that the currency circulates across the nation ahead of the January 31, 2023 deadline when the old notes will no longer be legal tender.
Saturday PUNCH gathered that the apex bank issued the directive to the banks on Wednesday and ordered that the implementation must begin immediately.
However, as of Friday, 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.
A source in a Tier-1 bank, who informed one of our correspondents of the CBN directive on Thursday, 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
meet their immediate needs.
“If you observed, a lot of ATMs were inactive during the Christmas and New Year holidays. The idea was not to give out old notes, but unfortunately, the new ones are not in circulation. The banks have a mandate to evacuate N1bn old notes each to the CBN on a daily basis and our head office has set a strict vault limit or cash holding limit for each branch, which on no condition we must exceed.”
When contacted, the CBN spokesman, Osita Nwanisobi, did not respond to enquiries by Saturday PUNCH. As soon as one of our correspondents introduced himself and the topic, he went mute. Subsequent calls to his mobile line were not taken. Text and WhatsApp messages sent to his telephone were not replied to.
However, a senior official of the CBN, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment on the issue, confirmed to Saturday PUNCH that the apex bank indeed issued the directive to the banks
we have. Customers are depositing old notes in huge volumes. The CBN has stopped the supply of the notes that will soon cease to be legal tenders to the banks.
“I am sure that before January 31, the new notes would have spread to different parts of the country. Though I work in a bank, I have not seen the new N200; I have only seen N500 at a party in Abeokuta and it was being sold as your paper rightly reported a few weeks back.”
Old notes
When Saturday PUNCH conducted surveys across many bank branches and ATM galleries on Friday to find out if the CBN directive had been complied with, it was discovered that the majority of them were still dispensing to their customers old notes that would go out of circulation by month end.
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