Bank customers continue to suffer as naira scarcity bites harder

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Many bank customers are still suffering the lingering cash crunch 72 hours after the Supreme Court judgement on the redesigned new naira notes policy, as many banks refused to dispense either the old naira notes of N200, N500 and N1000 or the new ones to them.

Recall the Supreme Court had given a judgement that the old N200, N500 and N1000 notes should co-exist with the newly redesigned ones till 31st December 2023.

Customers who thronged the Deposit Money Banks on Tuesday, many of them left disappointed as they were told by bank officials simply that “we don’t have cash.”

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However in some few banks, customers were lucky to have been able to withdraw money over the counter, as they were paid with old naira notes.

In some banks visited on Tuesday in Ogun and Lagos states, bank customers had to return home disappointed or needed to resort to Point of Sales operators who placed exorbitant charges on withdrawals.

Some had to cough up N200 on every withdrawal of N1000 and between N1000 and N1,500 on every N5000 cash withdrawal through the POS operators, since only few of them have cash to dispense.

“I went to the Wema Bank located at Ota in Ogun State on Tuesday, we were told that they had no cash,” one of the bank customers, who gave his name as Nosiru Ajagbe lamented.

He told said that the officials at the bank told them to come back on Wednesday.

Another customer, Shade Safira who could not get money over the counter equally moaned, “It is quite sad that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele is not talking on the way forward given the latest judgement by the Supreme Court.

READ ALSO: CBN Quietly Approves Old Naira Disbursement, Traders Reject Banknotes 

“The banks are simply confused, some of them are waiting on CBN for directive on what to do.

“I went to the bank this morning I couldn’t get to withdraw any cash over the counter and they had no money in the ATM, so I had to resort to the POS operators. For N5000 I had to pay N1000 as charges. This is quite uncalled for.”

CBN was said to have subtly released a directively to DMBs to receive old notes while it appealed to traders to continue to receive old notes from customers.

It is now a norm to see hordes of customers besieging banks and ATM points in town hoping against hope and praying that they could get cash to withdraw to meet their daily needs and business concerns.

Since the cash crunch began, it is practically difficult for a customer to withdraw N20,000 cash over the counter as directed by the CBN.

The highest many have got over the counter ranged between N5,000 and N2000.

Those who queued at the ATM points equally have sordid stories to tell as some of them after queuing for hours might be too unlucky to withdraw cash afterall, given the usual large number of customers on queue.