Former banker hails CBN cash withdrawal policy, others kick

144
Spread the love


Photo credit: Vanguard Nigeria.
By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.

A former banker,Mal.Mohammed Otu, has commended the Federal government on its recent cash withdrawal policy.

Otu,who made the commendation on Wednesday in an interview with the Correspondent of The Reporters in Lokoja, expressed optimism that the policy would be a milestone achievement aimed at stopping many fraudulent activities going on in the banking and financial sector of the nation’s economy.

He said:”The new cash withdrawal policy will go along way in enhancing the economy of the nation in many ways, especially in tackling fraudsters,scammers and the trending terrorism in the country.

“The money in circulation is not being used by commercial banks because it is not following the normal channel. Some of the moneys have deteriorated in value and made useless to the economy and the society.

“This is happening at a time when thousands of enterprising youths are looking for loans to start one company or the other, to fulfill their enterprenuerial ambition and boost the economy.

“So with this policy, money will now follow the normal channel in such away that commercial banks can now use it as loans to individuals, particularly the unemployed youths with good business ideas but lack funds to meet their aspiration and companies to embark on viable social and economic activities and the country will be better for it.

“This will have positive effect on the grassroots population as the effect of expanded businesses, brought about by the new cash policy, will trickle down to the grassroots to improve the material condition of rural areas.

Otu further argued that the new policy would also make the rural population, not conversant with the use of necessary application to transact business in banks, to learn such technology to be in tune with the modern way of transacting business in banks with ease.

According to Otu, the new policy is also capable of effectively checking crime, noting that it discourages carrying of large sums of money by individuals,a development he said made them predisposed to attack by by armed robbers as the case shows in some instances in the country.

“The issue of somebody travelling with say, N200,000 or more and attacked by criminals will no longer be in practice.

“All you need doing is just to carry little cash while travelling and use necessary application to transact business on getting to your destination and that will be okay.

However, some operators of Point of Sale (POS), who also spoke on the new policy with our Correspondent expressed reservation that it had limited their operation and might force some of them to stop such business.

“When this happens, many unemployed youths who took to PoS business to earn a living will be made jobless a development that might increase the unemployment market in the country and its attendant consequences,” Mamud Lawal, one of the PoS operators in Felele area of Lokoja told The Reporters.

A bank Officer,who wouldn’t want his identity revealed, in an interview with our Correspondent, said CBN should have publicised the policy for at least six months or months before the kick-off of the policy to enable the people, especially the rural population, know more about it and get prepared for its implementation.

“CBN should have started the policy on pilot basis and later make it a policy in order not to make the people feel its negative effects much.

“The fact that there are no many banks in the rural areas of the country, where people can easily transact business, unlike in the urban cities,will make the policy ineffective.

“This is because,not many of petty traders in rural areas have access to banks, not to talk of having bank account. So, many people in the rural may not derive much benefit from the new policy as such.

“Most small scale businesses that thrive in the rural areas in the country are cash based,the new withdrawal policy may not augur well for this class of business men and women as majority of them have no bank account,”he said.

The banker, who noted that the policy would take care corruption as those with huge sum of money they would not be able to account for it, however, argued that the policy being electronic in nature means that less hands will be engaged in banking service.

Our Correspondent recalls that the Central Bank of Nigeia (CBN), on December,6,2022, served Nigerians with the new policy.

In a memo to banks, signed by the Director of Banking Supervision,CBN, Haruna .B. Mustafa, individuals will only be able to withdraw N100,000 per week ( from over the counter, Point of Sale Machines or the Automated Teller Machines), while organisations can access N500,000 per week.

The apex bank, in circular, also directed banks to load only N200 and lower denominations into their ATMs and restricted withdrawal to N20,000 per day from ATMs, adding that the new will become effective on January 9, 2023.




One thought on “Former banker hails CBN cash withdrawal policy, others kick

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *