Naira Scarcity: CBN insists banks have "massive supply" of new notes

 BY: News Peddlers

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it has distributed "massive" quantities of the new naira notes to commercial banks, despite customer complaints about the difficulty in obtaining the banknotes.

The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, was represented by Musa Jimoh, the bank's director of Payment System Management, at a news conference in Jos.

"The CBN has massively supplied the new notes to commercial banks for use at counters and ATMs," Mr Emefiele stated. "This is to allow for faster circulation, and we want to advise commercial banks to stop keeping cash away from the public or face stiffer penalties."

Mr Emefiele advised bank customers to deposit their old notes at any commercial bank and receive the new banknotes as soon as possible, emphasising that the January 31 deadline would not be extended.

The CBN governor stated that the decision to redesign the currency demonstrates that the apex bank is in line with global standards, and that currency notes should be redesigned within five years.

He regretted, however, that it had taken Nigeria nine years to implement such changes.

The CBN governor stated during a monitoring and sensitization exercise in Jos that the decision to redesign the country's higher denominations of currency was a national project aimed at addressing cash circulation problems.

He also stated that it would address the issue of long-term savings in piggy banks, cash hoarding, and instances of counterfeit currency.

"The apex bank activated the monitoring and sensitization project to investigate banks' attitudes toward the spread of new currencies.

"We're also using it to raise awareness about the use of agents to circulate cash in communities where there are few or no bank branches," he explained.