The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday directed commercial banks to load only N200 and lower denominations into their Automated Teller Machine (ATM) starting from 9 January 2023.
The directive is contained in a memo on the revised cash withdrawal policy, a sequel to the naira redesign policy, to deposit money banks and other financial institutions by the CBN.
The memo was signed by the CBN director of banking supervision, Haruna Mustafa.
Other policies that will take effect from 9 January, according to the memo, include:
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- Weekly over-the-counter cash withdrawals by individuals and companies shall not exceed N100, 000 and N500,000 respectively. Withdrawal above these limits attracts a processing fee of five and ten percent respectively.
- Third-party cheques above N50,000 shall no longer be eligible for payment over the counter, while the limit of N10,000,000 on clearing cheques remains valid.
- Maximum withdrawals via ATM and Point of Sale (PoS) machines per week have been pegged at N100,000, which is subject to a maximum of N20,000 withdrawals per day.
- Cash withdrawals above the prescribed limits, not exceeding once a month, shall not exceed N5,000,000 and N10,000,000 for individuals and corporate organisations, respectively, and shall be subject to the referenced processing fees. In addition, for such withdrawals, banks are required to obtain the payee’s valid means of identification (national ID, driver’s license, international passport), Bank Verification Number (BVN), and the customer’s notarized declaration of the purpose of the cash withdrawal.
The CBN urged Nigerians to use alternative channels including internet banking, mobile banking apps, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services, POS, eNaira to conduct their banking transactions.
It is to be recalled that the apex bank has called for a return of old naira notes, and has begun distribution of the redesigned naira notes in the N200, N500, and N1000 denominations.
