Many banks did not open for business on over the weekend despite a directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to do so.
BulletinNG recalls that the CBN had directed banks to open on Saturdays in order to collect old notes from their customers following redesigning of naira denominations.
When Newspread visited some banks in Lagos, it was observed that majority of them did not open.
It was not clear if the reason for disobeying CBN’s directive has anything to do with the Christmas festivities, but our correspondent was told by a security guard at a Zenith Bank branch in Lagos that they opened at 9am but closed at 2pm for collection of deposits only.
Also, Access Bank had indicated it’s readiness to open some designated branches; while Keystone Bank said it would not operate on Saturdays.
“We are not going to open on Saturday, but our branch at Commercial Road, Apapa, will open,” said one of the staff of Access Bank.
Some Nigerian banks commenced Saturday banking towards the end of October 2022, as part of compliance measures to the CBN’s new rules on cash deposit.
The apex bank had directed all banks to keep open their currency processing centres from Monday to Saturday so as to accommodate all cash that will be returned by their customers.
On the amount of deposit so far returned into the banking system since the directive was issued, Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor said: “The central bank has taken close to half a trillion. And with the banks we also have close to about half a trillion. So what we have done in the central bank was to move more people from different departments into currency processing so that they can process so that they can process this cash as quickly as possible.”
Emefiele said over time the circulation of N500 and N1000 notes will reduce, adding that its availability in large volumes is partly responsible for the inflationary pressure.
Meanwhile, Newspread findings revealed that commercial banks are rationing the new naira notes they have received from the CBN as many customers are keen to hold the redesigned notes.
Aisha Ahmad, deputy governor in charge of financial system stability, said the CBN ordered the printing of 500 million pieces of new naira notes in the first contract, which rolled out last week, December 15, 2022.