•Hunt for new notes gets fiercer
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has rebutted viral reports on various social media handles of influential Nigerians stating that the apex bank has approved the return of the junked N500 and N1,000 notes into circulation.
The CBN in a statement jointly signed by Edward Adamu, the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services a s Osita Nwanisobi Director, Corporate Communications, said it was sticking to the presidential directive which only approved the reissue of the old N200 banknotes.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Central Bank of Nigeria reiterates that in line with the directives of Mr. President, only N200 old notes are to be reissued and to circulate concurrently with the new notes. Members of the public are therefore advised to ignore this fake news.
The Bank is working with the law enforcement agencies to investigate, apprehend and prosecute the purveyors of this fake news”, the statement noted.
Meanwhile, the hunt for the new naira notes got fiercer on Tuesday with many Nigerians besieging various banks to make withdrawal across the counter or via the ATMs.
The rush may not be unconnected to stockpile their homes ahead of Saturday’s presidential election where many will stay indoors.
Meanwhile, some customers of various banks, have resorted to the use of Payment Service Providers (PSPs), for their electronic transactions due to epileptic banks’ network.
Some of the customers, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said that electronic transactions using PSPs were faster, reliable and cheaper.
Some of the service providers that bank customers had resorted to include Opay, PalmPay, and Kuda bank, among others.
PSPs are firms that have been licenced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to provide a bridging infrastructure, end-to-end electronic payment solutions, systems and services to stakeholders within the financial services space.Mr Aliyu Ibrahim, a bank customer, said that electronic network of many Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) had failed, especially in times of dire need.
Ibrahim said he devised an alternative with PalmPay due to its reliable transaction network.
“I have had very frustrating and terrible experiences with my bank.