The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that the agency will impose stiff sanction on banks that continue to load their ATM machines with old naira notes as the January 31st deadline to phase them out draws closer.
The CBN said its operatives were already conducting random monitoring of banks, particularly in Ogun State, to ascertain those that were still paying with old naira notes from their ATMs.
The CBN Controller, Ogun State branch, Alhaji Wahab Oseni, made this known while allaying the worries of residents that banks in the state were still dispensing old notes or witnessing shortage of the redesigned new naira notes.
Oseni who spoke shortly after a sensitisation programme on the new naira notes at the popular Lafenwa Market Abeokuta, where market-women, men, traders and their sectional leaders were in attendance, assured of sufficient cash of new notes in all the banks in Ogun.
He said stiff sanction awaits any bank caught dispensing old notes, explaining that they have been instructed to stop filling their ATM machines with old notes as of January 13, 2023.
He advised the traders not to wait till the expiration of the January 31st window period for acceptance of old notes before returning them to their banks, warning that it would be hectic on the last day because of likely pressure and traffic of customers eager to return old notes on that final day.
He noted that the sensitization exercise regarding how to exchange the old notes for the new Naira notes became necessary to prepare the ground for easing out the anticipated bottlenecks likely to follow.
He urged them to make use of alternate payment system – e – naira wallet, Point Sale System(POS), electronic payment transfer among others to dispose their old naira notes before January 31st.
