Business
CBN Commences Cashless Policy In Rivers, Ogun Soon
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has concluded plans to extend the cashless policy to Rivers and Ogun states from July 1.
The decision to extend the cashless project to these states was made at the last Bankers’ Committee meeting in Abuja.
The CBN had earlier announced that the policy will take off from July 1 in four additional states after the Lagos pilot scheme. The states are Kano, Anambra and Abia as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
CBN’s head, shared services, Chidi Umeano, said the aforementioned states and the FCT were chosen because of the large volume of cash transactions in some of their major cities such as Aba, Kano, Port Harcourt and Onitsha, among others.
The cashless policy, whose implementation began in Lagos in January, last year, is aimed at reducing the dominance of cash in the system. The policy specifies penal charges for individuals and corporate organizations that want to withdraw or lodge cash above prescribed limits. Under the policy, the CBN pegged the daily cumulative cash withdrawal or deposit limit for individual accounts at N500,000 per day and N3 million per day for corporate accounts.
Umeano explained that the policy earlier planned to be implemented in other states in January 2013 was deferred due to some infrastructural challenges. He said the CBN is also being careful to ensure that it makes use of the resources in a smart way.