“The situation has calmed down since the start of over-the-counter payments to complement ATM payments and the use of super agents. So, there is no need to consider changes from the last date of February 10. the CBN governor said.
This statement despite the fact that the supreme court of Nigeria last week, extended the deadline for currency exchange until a date yet to be determined. Read the story here.
For context, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria announced in November 2022 that some of the country’s legal tenders, especially the N100, N200, N500, and N1000 notes, will be redesigned to increase the value of the currency. Read the story here.
Speaking further on the subject, he noted that Point of Sale (POS) operators charging Nigerians more for cash withdrawals should be prosecuted. He mentioned that POS agents charging above N200 for the CBN cash exchange program will be arrested and jailed when caught.
Generally, POS agents usually charge N100 per withdrawal, but some have been charging N300 to N500 for cash withdrawals that normally cost N100, before the cash shortage that hit the country a few weeks ago.
The CBN governor added that POS operators can come to the CBN to compensate them for the additional costs they incur in obtaining new notes instead of charging higher fees to their customers.
Furthermore, the Central Bank of Nigeria has threatened to crack down on Point of Sale operators who have turned themselves into payment agents to take advantage of members of the public as the currency redesign policy continues to cause uncertainty across the country.
The central bank has labeled unregistered payment agents as fifth columnists acting as economic sabotage and said it will launch a nationwide sting operation this week to arrest and punish them.
Mr. Joseph Omayuku, the Director, Department of the Governor, CBN, disclosed this while addressing the media in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on Monday afternoon, saying that the abusive practice was identified after an evaluation of policy execution.
“Further review shows that there is a fifth columnist operating in this system, and this fifth columnist, as it appears, is anyone with PoS access. Some of them have now engaged in unfortunate activities to act as payment agents,” he stated.
“So you know that next to the gas station, the agent or the PoS operator next to you will go, to sell money to you and you take the money to buy gas; and not only the gas station, in short, anywhere. From this week , there will be very operations across the country. Because this (sale of naira) is an incentive. The incentive is that they can sell the currency to us, which is not the case. You cannot sell naira to us,” he added.