The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday directed commercial banks to start paying the new naira notes to customers over the counter in the banking halls.
The development was confirmed in a statement by the apex bank’s Director of Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi, sent to POLITICS NIGERIA.
Paying of the new notes over-the-counter was initially prohibited.
According to the CBN, the queues at Automated Teller Machine (ATM) stands will end soon with this new directive.
“We have equally noticed the queues at Automated Teller Machines across the country and an upward trend in the cases of people stocking and aggregating the newly introduced banknotes they serially obtain from ATMs for reasons best known to them.
“Also worrisome are the reported cases of unregistered persons and non-bank officials swapping banknotes for members of the public, purportedly on behalf of the CBN,” the statement partly reads.
