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Business News of Thursday, 19 January 2023

Source: www.mynigeria.com

We have been begging banks to come and take the new Naira notes - CBN cries

CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele

The Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) has revealed that it has been begging banks to collect the new Naira notes.

They body is still finding it difficult to get the banks to work with them in this regard, even when the deadline for the validity of the N200, N300, N500 and the N1000 notes as legal tenders is on January 31.

The CBN's head of legal department, Kofo Salam-Alada, stated at a sensitization programme on Wednesday, January 18 that the body will go tough on banks that continue to fill their ATM machines with old naira notes.

He said: “I can tell you today that the CBN on daily basis issue out the new notes. As we speak, banks are with the CBN taking money. We are actually begging banks to come and take money from Central Bank. We have these new naira notes in our vaults and we are begging banks to come and take it.

"We found out that a lot of things are happening that we need to checkmate, so we stopped withdrawal of new notes over the counter to ensure that everyone can have access to it and not one chief who is known to the manager, walks in, and carts away all the new notes in a particular branch. That is why we said it should be in the ATMs which cannot distinguish people.

"We also have monitors going around banks now. I have been to some ATMs this morning and I have done the reports. We are not mobilising the masses against the banks because the banks are there to serve you, but be rest assured that they will serve you now that they know that the CBN is on them to serve you with the new naira notes.”

Salam-Alada added that anyone caught selling the new notes or any denomination of the naira would be jailed.

BEB