New naira enters circulation today as banks reconfigure ATMs

The newly redesigned naira notes will go into circulation on today with Deposit Money Banks releasing the bills to their customers via over-the-counter payments.

This came about three weeks after the President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled the new bills at a weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Aso Rock Villa.

The President unveiled the redesigned notes across the N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations.

The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, had in October announced that apex bank would release re-designed naira notes by December 15, 2022.

He also disclosed that the old notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023.

Emefiele said the redesigning of the naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes, and reduce ransom payments to terrorists and kidnappers.

The apex bank boss said it was worrisome that 85 per cent of the total currency in circulation was being hoarded by Nigerians.

As such, he said the redesigning of the local currency would help to mop up the currency outside the banking sector, adding that out of about N3.3tn in circulation, close to N2.75tn were outside the banking sector.

Multiple banking sources told The Punch that the new notes had arrived and were being kept in their vaults.

Barring any last-minute change of plans, the House of Representatives will on today grill Emefiele over the new cash withdrawal limits policy which restricts over the counter payments for individuals and companies to N100,000 and N500,000, respectively.

The CBN had, in a memo introducing the policy, said third-party cheques above N50,000 would no longer be eligible for OTC payment while extant limits of N10m on clearing cheques still remained.

The circular also directed banks to load only N200 and lower denominations into their ATMs and restricted withdrawals from ATM to N20, 000 per day. Withdrawals from PoS terminals were also limited to N20,000 daily.

The policy, which will become effective on January 9, 2023, has generated criticisms but the CBN clarified last Wednesday that PoS operators could apply for a waiver.

The House had last Thursday summoned the CBN governor to appear before it to explain the policy.

In a related development, the Senate on Wednesday called on the CBN to review the newly introduced cash withdrawal limits policy.

It also directed its Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, to embark on an aggressive oversight of the central bank.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator Uba Sani had in the report argued that the proposed cash withdrawal limits policy was well conceived by the CBN for the transformation of the nation’s economy, noting that the action falls within the mandate of the apex bank as provided for in Section 2(d) and 47 of its extant Act .

However, during the general debate on the report, many of the senators kicked against the timing of the policy stating that it could be particularly counter-productive.