The Central Bank of Nigeria, has warned against payment of charges while depositing the old naira notes to commercial banks.
Imo State CBN Branch Controller, Oyoburuoma Boma, made this to newsmen in Owerri, at the Cbn Sensitization Programme in Imo.
The CBN urged citizens to make use of alternative methods of deposit of the old naira notes through the POS, Electronic Transfer, USSD, and Internet Banking among others.
It also insisted that the deadline remains 31st of January, 2023 for the deposit of the old naira notes.
According to the CBN, “As we are all aware, the Central Bank is allowed by law to issue and manage the Nigerian Legal tender currency, popularly known as the Naira Section 17 of the CBN Act 2007 gives the CBN the sole right to issue naira notes and coins.
“When we issue new notes, Nigerians use them to buy goods and services.
As the notes change hands, they become dirty, torn, mutilated and soiled. The Central Bank must remove the damaged notes and replace them with new ones.
“As time goes on, more serious issues and challenges may arise, necessitating the Bank to change and replace the old notes entirely. The global best practice encourages the redesign of currency notes every 5 to 8 years.
The challenges and issues in our case are: Banknote Hoarding Shortage of clean and fit banknotes Counterfeiting Large Volumes of Currency in Circulation outside Bank vaults High cost of Cash Management Abuse, spray and sale of the Naira.
“These issues and challenges made the Central Bank change and redesign the higher denominations of N1000, N500 and N200 bank notes.
Now that we have changed and redesigned these higher denominations, we are here in the relief market today, to explain and say that;Only three of the current eight denominations were redesigned, namely the N1,000, N500, and N200 banknotes. All other banknotes- N5, N10, N20, N50, and N100 are not affected. The decision of the CBN to redesign 3 denominations of the naira is not targeted at any group or persons.
Meanwhile, Residents of Uyo in Akwa Ibom State have pleaded with the Central Bank of Nigeria to extend the dateline for the use of the old Nigerian notes.
