The saga of the cashless policy introduced by the CBN has received many blows as the poor masses have suffered the greatest hit from this new initiative.
Unconfirmed reports stated that a man in Abuja collapsed and died in the queue waiting for his turn after standing for long hours to withdraw some cash. There had been several reports of fighting at the ATM stands with long queues, customers going naked in the banking hall requesting for their cash, and so on.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had earlier stated that a whopping sum of N30,000,000 is been disbursed to bank branches all over the country on daily basis; this was in a bid to ease the pressure on banks in making the new naira notes available to the citizenry.
However, a source in Zenith bank denied receiving such a sum from the CBN.
“We operate with limited cash and we are not free from cash scarcity, we have to queue at ATM stands too to get cash; it’s been a big concern for us but what we know is that this money goes to the head office where it is distributed according to the performance of the branches, high performing branches gets more funds.”
The source who prefers anonymity said that there are high hopes that banks will increase cash paid from the counter from N2000 to N10,000 in the new week.
It is no more news that the commercial banks’ branch managers have been caught and arrested for selling of new naira notes to the highest bidders.
An eyewitness who happens to be a customer of Eco bank told Kemi Filani’s reporter that she experienced the operation of a branch manager issuing N500,000 and N1,000,000 respectively to two high-profile customers, while she wondered why she couldn’t get even N20,000 after a long queue outside the ATM stand.
She thought in her heart since she had the privilege to charge her phone inside the bank because of her relationship with the security man, she might be privileged to get some cash from the manager who left his office to attend to the high-profile customers himself at a special section in the banking hall. It became clear to her that those people who were handed over the new naira notes actually bought them.
Information available to Kemi Filani further revealed how bankers buy cash from owners of grocery stores, boutiques, shops, etc, to have the cash to dispense out.
“like 5,000,000 was bought at N250,000, and after buying at a such rate your guess is as good as mine on how much it would be sold.” a banker source told Kemi Filani.
While interviewing a customer at one of the commercial banks, he said “standing in the queue in the bank is now a full-time business; some persons take numbers to stand in the queue and when it is almost their turn they sell their space.”
On the other hand according to Mr Steve Emmanuel, a POS operator who spoke to Kemi Filani, for POS operators it has become a big cash cow; they wake as early as 3 am to start the bank queue using as many as 10 ATM cards for withdrawals, then sell this cash at a ridiculous amount.
He, however, decried the poor bank services encountered during transactions; noting that the cashless policy cannot work with the current bank’s poor network, “transfers are not going so payments all over the country is so hard, therefore people still fall back to requesting for cash payments”. He concluded by pleading with the CBN to ensure an improved network system before enforcing the cashless regime.
Meanwhile, every attempt to get the CBN’s input on this matter was abortive….
