New naira notes go into circulation today
The newly redesigned naira notes will go into circulation on Thursday (today) with Deposit Money Banks releasing the bills to their customers via over-the-counter payments.
This came about three weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled the new bills at a weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Aso Rock Villa.
The President unveiled the redesigned notes across the N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations.
The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, had in October announced that apex bank would release re-designed naira notes by December 15, 2022.
He also disclosed that the old notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023.
Emefiele pointed out that the redesigning of the naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes, and reduce ransom payments to terrorists and kidnappers.
The CBN boss said it was worrisome that 85 per cent of the total currency in circulation was being hoarded by Nigerians.
Read Also: President Buhari Unveils Redesigned Naira Notes
As such, he said the redesigning of the local currency would help to mop up the currency outside the banking sector, adding that out of about N3.3tn in circulation, close to N2.75tn were outside the banking sector.
Meanwhile, top officials of commercial banks confirmed to our correspondent on Wednesday they had received the new notes from the CBN a couple of days ago, adding that the redesigned currency would be released to their customers effective Thursday (today).
Multiple banking sources also said the new notes had arrived and were being kept in their vaults.
They confirmed the new notes would be paid to customers in banking halls beginning from Thursday.
Also, a manager at First Bank Plc who was not authorised to speak on the matter said, “We have the funds from the CBN now. It came in some days ago but it will be made available to customers from tomorrow (Thursday).”
However, some bank officials claimed the amount of the new notes available to the various bank from the CBN was small.
According to them, most OTC payments will still have to be made using the old notes because the amount of the available new notes is still small.
Also, multiple banking sources confirmed they have started to reconfigure their ATMs to identify the new naira notes.
A top bank executive said, “Most of the banks have started reconfiguring their ATMs so that they can identify the new notes of N1000, N500 and N200.,”’
Meanwhile, findings from the CBN show the total amount to be released into circulation may not be much as the sum previously in circulation.
A top official of the CBN, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the CBN was planning to increase electronic payments and not cash transactions.
According to him, the CBN will not be printing large amount of the new notes.
New naira notes go into circulation today
