CBN to apply charges on withdrawals, deposits from October 2

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it will start applying charges on withdrawals and deposits above N500,000 for individuals and N2 million for corporate bodies from Oct. 2.

Deputy Governor, Operations, Tunde Lemo, said this in Abuja while briefing newsmen at the end of the Special Forum on Financing the Power Sector Reforms for Economic Development.

He said that the action would ensure effective implementation of the cashless policy.

The CBN had given a three-month moratorium for the full implementation of charges to customers who withdraw or deposit money higher that what was stipulated in the Cashless policy document.

Lemo said that from Oct. 2, any customer that deposited above N500, 000 per day would be charged two per cent payment on it while withdrawal would attract three per cent charge.

He said that customers needed not to pass through the onerous task of depositing and withdrawal over the counter but advised the use of electronic fund transfer.

He said that electronic payment in Lagos accounted for 70 per cent to 80 per cent of high value transactions on daily basis.

Lemo said that the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) driven by Nigerian Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), together accounted for three times the volume of cheques used in transactions.

On Connectivity of Point of Sales (POS) and efficiency of Automated Teller Machines (ATM), he said that the apex bank was working with the Telecoms to expand the bandwidth for service delivery.

He said that POS availability had been increased in Abuja and five other locations by five folds between January and September with the available statistics.

Lemo said that before the introduction of the cashless policy in Nigeria, only two per cent of retail transactions were done electronically, but noted that in one year, it had gone up to 20 per cent.