An economic expert, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to remove old and dirty notes from circulation.
\nUwaleke, an Associate Professor of Banking at the Nasarawa State University, \u00a0said such notes were causing constant malfunctioning of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), especially during pressure periods.
\nHe said this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, recently.
\nThe Tide source had reported in a national survey on challenges faced by bank customers in cash withdrawal at festive periods that hundreds of Nigerians complained of machine failure, slowness and long queues.
\nAccording to the source these happened at a time when people were eager to withdraw their savings to celebrate, many of them left frustrated due to the challenges. Many of the banks in some states do not have enough ATM machines to take care of\u00a0 the needs of the people and the ones available break down when they are put on constant use. To proffer solution to these, Uwaleke urged the CBN to ensure that banks did not use worn-out notes in the ATMs.
\n\u201cAbroad, the ATMs are used to dispense new \u2018mint\u2019 notes, so when you use dirty notes, the machine finds it difficult to recognise it or even dispense it.
\n\u201cThe money in the ATM is what these banks get from the CBN and you will agree with me that most notes in circulation today are dirty and old.
\n\u201cAs a customer, when you complain about the condition of the bank notes, the banks will just tell you that is what they have.
\n\u201cSo CBN should try and ensure that dirty notes are withdrawn from circulation and replaced with new ones, especially during festive periods,\u201d he said.
\nUwaleke said that the banks should be made to provide more ATMs around the country because no matter how good the machines were, they would be ineffective when put under too much pressure.
\n\u201cBanks should be made to provide more ATMs. ATMs are bound to break down when it is put under pressure. It\u2019s just like using your generator 24 hours non-stop.
\n\u201cWhen more ATMs are made available, they will help to reduce the long queues normally experienced during festive periods and also serve to ease pressure on a particular ATM so that it doesn\u2019t get overworked.
\n\u201cBanks should also make sure that there is staff readily available at any point in time to attend to issues arising from the breakdown of these machines.
\n\u201cI know some banks dedicate workers during these periods and even on weekends but not all of them. Banks should be encouraged to do more,\u201d he said.
\nUwaleke also advised the CBN to continue to sensitise the public to cashless policy and use of electronic payment methods.
\n\u201cWe must not buy all our things using cash and that is why we have long queues. The idea of using POS should be encouraged.
\n\u201cCBN should continue to enlighten people on the importance of using POS during these period so that even if you are to withdraw cash, it\u2019s just little that you need.
\n\u201cLet the bulk of your purchase be done electronically. If all these are done, we won\u2019t be having much of these complaints again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An economic expert, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to remove old and dirty notes from circulation. Uwaleke, an Associate Professor of Banking at the Nasarawa State University, \u00a0said such notes were causing constant malfunctioning of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), especially during pressure periods. He said this in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icttelecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}