The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has ordered banks not to pay customers making over-the-counter withdrawal of new notes again on Wednesday, January 4.
Instead, banks are expected to load their ATM with only new notes to ensure that the currency circulates across the nation ahead of the January 31, 2023 deadline.
However, as of Friday, the banks had been unable to follow the instruction since they reported that there wasn’t enough of the new notes available, leading them to fill their ATMs with the old notes.
The ban was contained in a memo: “Urgent update on currency redesign,” by the Group Head, Retail Operation, CBN.
The memo said: “The CBN has mandated that we immediately stop the Over-the-Counter payment of the new N200, N500 & N1,000 currency.
“Instead, all new notes should be loaded into the ATMs for customer withdrawals.
“This is effective immediately please.”
Addressing the scarcity of the new notes, the official said, “From this weekend, new notes will be available for disbursement to bank customers. We are pushing the ₦1,000 and ₦500 notes through the ATMs for now. The ₦200 will be available later.”
