According to reports from some commercial banks, the Central Bank of Nigeria has possibly stopped giving out the new N200, N500, and N1,000 notes to the Money Deposit Banks (DMBs).22
Staff from one of the banks told The Nation on Monday that they were not given new notes from the CBN.
The staff said:
ATTENTION: Click “HERE” to join our WhatsApp group and receive News updates directly on your WhatsApp!
“The kind of money we’ve been receiving is not from the Mint at all. I don’t know what has happened to the new notes.”
Also, the banks complained that the old notes issued to them were not sufficient to meet customers’ demands. Some of the banking halls had very few customers withdrawing cash over the counter.
A staff member of the banks said unlike in the past, “regardless of the size and location of a bank branch, the CBN only allocates what it feels like to the banks.”
This limited cash supply from the CBN, the bank staff member said, is what is responsible for the cash shortage in the system.
Managing Director/CEO SD&D Capital Management Limited, Mr Gbolade Idakolo, expressed worry as well.
He said:
“The scarcity of new Naira notes might reach an unbearable level thus leading to confusion.
“The government might likely take action now that the elections are over because their silence has caused increased hardship and has affected commerce.”
It was said that many of the banks’ branches in Victoria Island Lagos, Matori, and Machine, Lagos, some banks attended to customers but ran out of cash around noon.
Some of the banks’ branches were rationing cash payments, limiting it to N5,000 and N10,000 daily.
The lingering cash scarcity is still being felt, over a week after the CBN asked banks to accept and pay old N200, N500, and N1,000 denominations.
Although there was a gradual increase in the volume of cash in circulation, the demand for cash by customers has so far outweighed the cash supply.
