The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says cashless economy initiative proposed by the bank, to be in full implementation soon, has the capacity to track down all major movement of money including terrorism financing, bribery and all attempts to compromise financial transparency.

The Controller Port Harcourt branch of the apex bank, Mr. Ken Effa who stated this in an exclusive interview with the Tide in Port Harcourt Monday said, to grow the economy, there was every need to exploy more modern instrument of payment in the system.

“This new system is electronic means of payment which would not require cash to effect payment of goods and services”, Mr. Effa said.

Describing the system as one with a lot of benefits to individuals, financial institutions, government and companies, the CBN branch controller stressed that “with cashlight the fear of being robbed of large sum of money would not be there again because the robbers know also that you don’t carry cash”.

He further stated that with cashlight, transaction would be consummated faster as you do not need to pass through the apex bank to effect payment abroad in any international business transaction.

“It will also reduce cost of processing so much notes for CBN and for the commercial banks, it will reduce cash flow or movement of cash from one location to the other to effect customers needs.

Explaining further, the controller noted that the system which has become operational in Lagos was yet to pick up fully because defaulters of the requirement of not exceeding N150,000.00 per day have not began to suffer the penalty but expressed confidence that by the ending of March, defaulters would face the wrath of the law.

CBN, he said, is thinking of providing a large number of Point of Sale (POS) machines that would take care of the whole country, will equally check the syndrome of counterfeit and ‘Ghana Must Go’ which has bedevilled financial transaction and Nigerian economy.

He disagrees with the term “Cashless economy”, as being used, as according to him, the term implies that cash would not be in use, “the accurate term is cashlight not cashless”, he said.

According to him, cashlight economic system takes into cognisance, the fact that cash payment will still be allowed for small transactions and for the rural communities.

On the problem of poor power envisaged in the system, he disclosed that apart from the plan by the federal government to improve power sector, the UP system that would enable the machine to store up power would go a long way in checking the poor power supply situation in the country.

Chris Oluoh