Recently, bank custom
ers who use the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) received text messages informing them of a new policy that would require them to apply for fresh cards from their parent banks should their cards be seized by bank ATM machines other than their main banks.
Such text messages further went to say that such trapped cards would be regarded as being destroyed and cannot be used for further transactions event if the unfortunate user retrieved them.
Our correspondent who went to town to sample the opinions and reactions of the people reports that the development has not gone down well with the people.
For Timothy Jacob, it was a ploy to defraud the unsuspecting public of their hard-earned money.
He explained that it was not the fault of members of the public that the ATM machines were not working efficiently, even as he advised the banks to reverse the order.
For Clement Wiyo, a pharmacist, the tricks of the banks was not lost to Nigerians.
According to him, Nigerians were now wiser than before and everybody knows that every new ATM card attracts a fee of not less than N1000.
He said what the banks should look forward to was to make their machines work efficiently and not allow the public  to pay for their inadequacies.
For Charity Mbata, a hair dresser, “the banks are desperate to make money.”
She questioned the rationale behind such a policy given the fact that not all the branches of the banks were available especially in the semi-urban and rural towns of the country.
Describing the policy as bad for the generality of the people, she accused the banks of not doing a study of the policy before implementation.
A designer and Managing Director of Chutex Fashions   Ahoada,  the policy could be described as a test and wished the banks to discontinue with the policy.
He explained that there was no way the policy could work given that banks only concentrate  their branches only in commercially viable places.
Highlighting further, he said in the whole of Rivers State, Omoku in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area of the state was the only place that has a high concentration of banks apart from Port Harcourt, the state capital.
The policy according to him, then means that anyone with the UBA/ATM, who lives in Ahoada could only go either to Port Harcourt or Omoku for a new ATM card if his or her card was seized, given the fact that Ahoada has only two banks, namely, First bank and Ecobank.
For Dum Johnson, a choral master, the policy is capable of discouraging people from saving.
He reasoned that since it was viewed that majority of account holders were small-time savers, the development was capable of making them have a rethink.
Further, he said since banks only allow people drawing above N100,000 go into the bank halls, then the essence of having an ATM card would no longer be meaningful for low savers, even as he said the more you apply for new cards the more your money goes.
However, efforts to speak with the Branch Zonal Manager, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Port Harcourt, was not successful, but a source at the bank which asked not to be named said the banks were merely implementing a CBN directive.
He said it was natural for people to feel bad about policies that do not favour them adding that when the CBN ordered banks across the country to stop  charging a fee of N100 for ATM operations not relating to one’s bank, no body complained.