The hope of Nigerians that scarcity of old Naira notes may soon come to an end was dashed yesterday as banks ran out of the notes.
\nThis is against the sigh of relief customers had on Monday when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yielded to the Supreme Court’s ruling that the old N1000, N500 and N200 banknotes would remain legal tender alongside the redesigned banknotes till December 31, 2023.
\nHowever, several banks either remained closed, or rendered skeletal services across the country, as crowds gathered banking halls and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
\nThe Tide’s source gathered that CBN was yet to supply the old notes to banks.
\nIn Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Capital, customers spent hours in banking halls and in long queues at ATM machines in banks that were open to customers.
\nSome banks that have several ATN machines, only one was dispensing cash, while at other banks the ATM machines ware locked.
\nMaximum withdrawals was pegged at N20,000 in banks that were dispensing cash.
\nIn Jos, the Plateau State capital, customers were told there was no money.
\nAn official, who pleaded anonymity told The Tide’s source that the branch had no money to dispense.
\n\u201cThe truth is there is no cash. The banks are interested in doing business, but CBN is yet to release cash to us.
\n\u201cI have sympathy with our customers who are left stranded, but the truth is, there is nothing we can do about it. We don\u2019t have the cash”, he said.
\nIn Imo State, all the ATMs the source visited did not dispense cash, even as some customers got to the bank before 6 am only to be told there was no money.
\n\u201cWe were told to return tomorrow (today) after they paid a few customers the old naira notes”, a customer said.
\nIt was the same in other States, such as Lagos, Cross River, Edo, Oyo, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Ogun.
\nSpeaking on the issues, the Bank Customers Association of Nigeria (BCAN) President, Dr. Uju Ogubunka, said it would be difficult for the CBN to attend to banks\u2019 cash requests at once.
\nOn his part, the former Registrar of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) said: \u201cMany banks requested cash immediately after the CBN announced that the old naira notes remained legal tender.
\n\u201cI believe it will be on a first come first served basis. Not all the banks will have their cash needs met at once”.
\nAccording to him, it could take some time before the cash will reach all the banks\u2019 branches and tackle the current cash scarcity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The hope of Nigerians that scarcity of old Naira notes may soon come to an end was dashed yesterday as banks ran out of the notes. This is against the sigh of relief customers had on Monday when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yielded to the Supreme Court’s ruling that the old N1000, N500 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":312995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-314459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314459","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=314459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314463,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314459\/revisions\/314463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/312995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}