Some angry citizens, on Friday, condemned the Federal Government, according to findings by Punch the Central Bank of Nigeria and Deposit Money Banks for subjecting them to hardship over the scarcity of new naira notes and the astronomical hike in the pump price of petrol as a result of acute scarcity.

While some vented their anger by embarking on street protests, others attacked bank branches and facilities.

There were protests in Ibadan Oyo State capital, on Friday, by frustrated citizens over their inability to withdraw money in their bank accounts as well as the lingering fuel crisis and the attendant rising cost.

Similar protests took place in Lagos, Ondo and Edo states, sparking apprehension that the situation could degenerate in the coming days.

Amidst the confusion, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), expressed doubts about the commitment of banks to the success of the new naira policy and accused some of them of being inefficient and making the policy unnecessarily difficult through “selfishness and greed."

He also asked to be given seven days to resolve the problems associated with the scarcity of the currency.

Citizens lament hardship

At the UBA branch in Ibafo, Ogun State, a housewife, Mrs Silifat Oseni, used expletives to describe those in government for subjecting her to so much hardship as she was finding it difficult to buy foodstuffs to feed her family.

She said, “What have we done to President Buhari and the CBN governor that they are punishing us like this? They have collected our old notes and are not supplying the new notes, yet the prices of fuel and food items have hit the rooftop.

“I was in the market on Thursday and the meat and pepper sellers refused to accept transfers as a means of payment. They insisted on me paying cash, which I didn’t have. I came to the bank this morning (Friday) to withdraw just N5,000 so that my family can feed, but the queue at the ATM gallery is so long and the security guards did not allow me to go inside the banking hall. I don’t know what to do next.”

A commercial motorist, who attempted to buy fuel at a filling station in the Ketu area of Lagos State, Lamidi Adetunji, expressed frustration at his inability to get the product, adding that the attendants refused to collect old naira notes from him.

Adetunji said, “I waited for over one hour for the tanker to discharge the fuel and when it was my turn to purchase the product, the attendant said the PoS was not working and I tried four times to transfer money to her without success.

“I was asked to go to a PoS operator outside the station and the woman told me that she would take N1,000 on the N10,000 that I wanted to withdraw. I didn’t have a choice. We can’t increase transport fares too much because people don’t have money to pay.”

A civil servant with the Ogun State Government, Saheed Shomorin, who was at the GTBank branch in Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta according to Findings, said he spent over three hours on Friday before he succeeded in withdrawing N10,000 from the ATM, adding that the situation was affecting his productivity as he would not be able to report in the office.

An employee of the Boluwaduro Local Government Council, Osun State, Mrs Oluyemisi Ajiteru, said, “We in the rural areas are finding it difficult to get the so-called new money and they are insisting that we must deposit the old ones. People are really suffering here.

“On Wednesday, I had to travel from my base in Otan Ayegbaju to go to Ikirun to withdraw N2,000 from a PoS agent, who added N400 as his charge. I spent N600 to travel to Ikirun and back to my base and I am just a junior worker. How will I cope now?”

A trader in Nyanya, Mallam Abubakar Audu, expressed anger at the hardship being suffered in the country, saying, “I can’t get money to take home to my two wives and children because my customers are insisting on transferring money to me. Though I have an account, where will I get cash to spend?

“The situation is dangerous now and people may just embark on spontaneous protests, which may disrupt the elections that the government is labouring hard to organise. President Buhari, though he is my kinsman, has not done well at all. He appears uncaring about what will happen to the nation after his exit in May.”

In Enugu, one of our correspondents reports that some customers now stay till around 2am for ATMs to be loaded, while others come to the banks around the same time so that they could be among the first to make withdraws when banks start work by 8am on a daily basis.

A bank customer, who gave his name as Emeka Okorie, said he had been going to the ATMs for three days to make withdrawals but had not been successful because of the huge crowd that besieged the galleries.

Okorie said, “Today makes it the fourth time I have been going to the bank. I left my house by 4am so that I could be able to make a withdrawal.

“I was even told that some people slept in the ATM gallery because the only machine dispensing money stopped working by 2am.”

Another customer, Moses Chidiebube, described the naira redesign policy as demonic and evil.
Another bank customer, Kingsley Obi, also lamented the suffering Nigerians were going through to get cash.

He said, “I went to the bank around 1.30am yesterday (Thursday) only to withdraw N20,000 around 11am. So, people have left their businesses to stay in ATM galleries. This is the worst policy of this administration.

“When Buhari came as a military Head of State in 1983, because of his inept administration, Nigerians suffered. Now he is at it again.”

In Onitsha, Nnewi, Obosi, Ekwulobia and some parts of Awka in Anambra State, customers besieged the banks as early as 6am in order to get favourable positions in the queues.

It was lamentation from the customers as they were yet to be attended to as of 1:45pm.

Most of the banks shut their banking halls to customers as early as 9am, while allowing only those who had come to deposit cash into the halls.

In Niger State, most of the banks had yet to implement the CBN directive to commence payment of cash over the counter.

Banks premises in Lokoja, Kogi State, were similarly besieged on Friday by frustrated customers in search of elusive cash, which had been in short supply for the past two weeks.

At the GTBank Fenn junction, a large crowd of customers thronged the ATM gallery, with only one machine dispensing cash to customers.

Treasure Atabor, a customer in the queue told Saturday PUNCH that he arrived at the bank around 5am to beat the crowd but was surprised to meet a long queue.

Similar queues were noticed at the UBA opposite Prince Abubakar Audu University, Ayingba.

At the Zenith Bank, Ankpa, angry residents expressed displeasure with the treatment meted out to them as they were denied access to their money

Most commercial banks within the Sokoto metropolis closed their gates as customers struggled to enter the premises on Friday.

Customers attack banks

Saturday PUNCH gathered that a machete-wielding man attacked a branch of the UBA in the Ibafo area of Ogun State on Thursday by scaling the fence of a neighbouring building to get onto the bank’s premises in broad daylight and succeeded in destroying some decorative glasses before he was overpowered by four policemen.

A security guard explained that the measure became necessary in view of the incident with the machete-wielding customer the previous day.

The guard explained, “We have been instructed not to allow many people into the banking hall in order to avert disaster. Yesterday (Thursday), an angry customer, who wielded a cutlass, scaled the fence and jumped onto the bank premises and broke some glass before he was overwhelmed by four policemen and taken to the station.

“We were lucky that the security doors were functional. Only God knows the havoc he would have wreaked if he had got into the banking hall with the weapon he was holding.”

At the Access Bank branch in Ibafo, it was observed that customers were not at the ATM gallery as the machines were not dispensing cash. It was learnt that the branch did not open for normal banking operations for three days because a female customer created a scene there on Tuesday by stripping to her underwear due to frustration of not getting cash as she claimed that her children were starving at home and she could not get money to buy food for them.

Saturday PUNCH gathered that there were also attacks on a branch of Fidelity Bank on Victoria Island, Lagos; Access Bank on Broad Street, Lagos Island; UBA branch in Oke-Arin, Lagos Island; and First Bank, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos.

Similarly, the Wema Bank, Agodi Gate branch, Ibadan, was attacked by youths, who broke the windows and the ATM gallery with stones and sticks in a viral video obtained by Saturday PUNCH.

A corporate affairs manager of a Tier-1 bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter, confirmed the attacks to one of our correspondents, but said it was too early to take count as reports from the branches were still coming in.

“Angry customers and hoodlums are destroying bank branches. I can confirm that our bank has suffered some attack, but the reports are just coming from our branches. Give me some time to get the reports so that I can be categorical about the attacks,” he said.

In an attempt to deposit old notes before the January 31 deadline stipulated for the phasing out of the old N1,000, N500 and N200 notes, bank customers have started rushing to banks across the country to exchange their old notes for new ones, according to findings by SUPERS.ng.

This came as the Central Bank of Nigeria insisted on Tuesday that there was no going back on the stipulated deadline despite appeals by the National Assembly, key stakeholders and bank customers.

The CBN had repeatedly advised Nigerians to deposit their old notes, regardless of the amount, in banks before the fixed deadline.

Findings on Tuesday showed there were queues of bank customers in Kano, Ondo, Osun, Borno, and Anambra, among others, seeking to exchange the old notes for the new naira bills ahead of the deadline.

Kano

Customers on Tuesday besieged various commercial banks in the ancient city of Kano to either get the new naira notes or deposit the old notes in order to beat the January 31 CBN deadline.

The customers, who were seen in long queues in most of the banks, lamented the failure of most of the banks to provide the new naira notes.

It was observed that while some ATM machines were operating, many were not functioning as they were deserted.

At Zoo road, Murtala Mohammed Way and Maiduguri road where there is a concentration of banks, very few of the ATM machines were dispensing the new naira notes.

It was gathered that in some banks, old notes were still being issued to customers withdrawing over the counter, as only some lucky customers were getting the new notes.

Some of the customers, who spoke to The PUNCH at First Bank on Zoo road branch, expressed great concern over the non-availability of the new notes and the refusal of the banks to give satisfactory explanations of the situation.

One of the customers, who simply gave his name as Lawan,  said he left his house as early as 7 am in order to withdraw only N20,000 but ended up getting only N10,000 due to poor network.

“The only ATM machine dispensing new notes suddenly became faulty while I was trying to withdraw N20,000. So, I ended up withdrawing N10,000 after spending about three hours in the queue.

“None of the banks can explain the reasons behind all these happenings because to deposit the old notes or withdraw the new notes is a problem,” Lawan said.

Another customer, Adamu Abdullahi, who went to the bank to deposit his old naira notes said he spent more than four hours in the queue before he could deposit the money.

“I came here around 8:30 am but could not deposit the money until after 4 pm due to the long queue of customers,” he said.

As of the time of filing this story, many traders had stopped collecting the old naira notes due to the challenges bedevilling the entire process.

Sokoto

According to him, many people, especially petty traders were becoming increasingly conscious of the date when the old notes would cease to be recognised as legal tender and were trying to beat the deadline.

Ondo

Commercial banks in Ondo State were filled with customers seeking to deposit old bills and withdraw new notes on Tuesday.

It was observed that most of the customers were market traders and farmers. Some of them travelled from their towns and villages, where there are no commercial banks, to Akure and other big towns. Some were said to be PoS operators.

One of the customers who travelled from Oba Akoko in the Akoko South-West Local Government, Mr Sunday Adeoye, lamented the lack of an adequate number of commercial banks in the Akoko area.

Adeoye said, “There are no banks in our area, some customers would travel from Ipesi Akoko, Igashi Akoko and Ikakumo to Ikare for new notes. This is too stressful and expensive, now that transport fare is too high due to fuel price hike and scarcity in Akokoland.”

Another customer, Alhaji Ismaila Musa, a farmer from the Eleyowo community in the Akure North Local Government, stated that the new notes were not yet circulating as expected.

He said, “We are calling on banks to follow the CBN directives and make the new notes available to all of us. We have to come to Akure to deposit the old notes and we have not seen the new notes in our area.”

Borno

Banks in the Maiduguri metropolis have been witnessing a more-than-usual build-up of fairly rowdy crowds as most customers rush to deposit their old naira notes while others struggle to withdraw the new notes.

At the Monday Market branch of Zenith Bank, the queues were so long that customers were only allowed into the banking hall in groups of 10 to 15.

“I tried to deposit N2m of the old notes yesterday, but I could not because of the crowd, coupled with the fact that counting a huge amount of cash seems so tedious for the bank staff, that they can only serve a relatively smaller number of depositors daily,” Mr Ahmed Hassan, who operates a corporate account with the bank, told The PUNCH.

“I have just been able to deposit the cash today (Tuesday) after spending three hours in the banking hall, not even in the queue outside,” he said.

The PUNCH observed that many depositors, who trooped to the banks to deposit the old notes on Monday, could not do so. Many of them complained that they might not be able to do it on Tuesday.

At the Jaiz Bank at Shehu Laminu Way, apart from the crowd of seemingly helpless depositors in the banking hall, the queue at the ATM featured occasional brawls by customers engaged in a struggle to withdraw the new notes.

“I wanted to withdraw N30,000 over-the-counter because the queue by the ATM was too long for me. We were later driven out by the bank workers. The officials told us that we should either accept old notes over-the-counter or endure the ATM queue and crowd to withdraw new notes,” a customer who would not mention his name told The PUNCH.

In five banks monitored by SUPERS.ng, the ATMs dispense new notes, with most of them being the N1,000 note.

However, several customers complained of the shortage of the N500 and the N200 notes.

Anambra

Customers on Tuesday besieged banks across major cities of Onitsha, Nnewi and Awka to change their old naira notes.

Our correspondent who monitored the situation, observed that most ATM machines in Onitsha, Awka and Nnewi, were still dispensing the old notes as bank customers complain heavily.

At the motor parks and market places in Onitsha on Tuesday, a town crier went around announcing to the people that “with effect from Thursday(this week), old notes would no longer be accepted for transaction at the motor parks and marketplaces.

Some few days ago, traders at the Main Market, Onitsha, had complained to the officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria who visited the market for a sensitisation, how bank officials were selling and hoarding the new naira notes in Onitsha.

NASS seeks extension

Meanwhile, the Senate on Tuesday appealed to the CBN to extend the deadline for the exchange of old naira notes from the January 31 deadline to July 31, 2023.

The apex bank had in October last year said the old naira notes would seize to be legal tender from January 31.

The Senate in December passed a resolution urging the CBN to extend the deadline to June 30.

However, the insistence of the CBN on no reversal on the set deadline instigated Senator Sadiq Umar, (APC, Kwara North) to move a motion on the floor of the red chamber on Tuesday,  where he demanded an extension to July 31.

Most senators who contributed to the debate overwhelmingly embraced the extension, citing the scarcity of new notes both in the banks and at the various ATMs across the country as the reason.

The President, Senate, Ahmad Lawan, put the prayers in motion to vote and the lawmakers voted in support of the extension of the deadline from January 31 to July 31.

The House of Representatives also called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), over the brewing crisis occasioned by the January 31 deadline issued by the CBN, for Nigerians to exchange their old naira notes with the new ones.

Apart from asking the CBN to extend the window for swapping the old notes with the newly redesigned one by six months, the House invited Deposit Money Banks, also known as commercial banks, to a meeting on Wednesday (today) over the scarcity of new naira notes.

The managing directors/chief executive officers of the banks, under the auspices of the Bankers’ Committee, are to meet with an ad hoc committee of the House to be chaired by the Majority Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa.

The House particularly resolved that the banks should be invited to explain the alleged supply shortage from the Central Bank of Nigeria, after which the lawmakers would invite the leadership of the apex bank for questioning.

The House “call on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the insistence of the CBN on the tight deadline for the implementation of the cashless policy and currency swap.”

The lawmakers also urged the CBN to extend the implementation of the cashless policy “to at least six months as well as review the daily withdrawal limit and the charges therefrom.”

The resolution follows the unanimous adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by a member of the House from Katsina State, Sara Soli, at the opening of the plenary on Tuesday.

Soli noted that the CBN was insisting on the January 31 validity deadline for the new N1,000, N500 and N200 notes despite that Nigerians have limited access to them.

CBN insists

Meanwhile, the CBN has said that there is no going back on the deadline.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said this on Tuesday after the first Monetary Policy Committee meeting of 2023.

Emefiele said, “Unfortunately, I don’t have good news for those who feel that we should shift the deadline. My apologies. The reason is that just like the President has said on more than two occasions and even to people privately, for us, 90 days or 100 days,  we feel is enough for anybody who has money or old currency to deposit it in the banks.

“We took every measure to ensure that all the banks were open or remain open to receive the old currencies. We believe 100 days are more than adequate. We called on the banks to extend banking hours and keep doors open on Saturdays. The banks did not have any reason to even keep their banking halls open on Saturday neither did they see the kind of rush. It was the normal people who came and deposited in the banks.

“We do not see any need to talk about a shift because people could not deposit their old money into their banks. About the circulation of the new currency, we said the currency was available.”

He said the apex bank stopped banks from paying new notes over the counter because they were not paying the vulnerable people that needed the new notes.

He said banks “paid new notes to their friends. We told the banks to fill their ATMs with new notes and not put in old notes again. We increased the volume of disbursement of new notes to the banks and at some points, we told banks to reduce the volume of old notes in their banks at a certain percentage because on the first you should have zero old notes in their vaults.”

He lamented that in 2015, N1.42tn was in circulation but the figures jumped to N3.23tn in 2022.

According to him, N1.7tn out of the N3.23tn is outside bank vaults.

Emefiele said so far, the apex bank has received N1.3tn to N1.5tn from banks since the date of the announcement.

He said, “By last week, we have seen about N1.3tn to N1.5tn in. We are hoping that as we get into this week, we will move closer to N2tn. If we get N2tn in and those who decide to keep it in the vault keep it in their homes, I am not going to force them to bring it out.”

 Appeal to EFCC, ICPC

The CBN governor said he had appealed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission to allow people to deposit their cash.

He said this, discouraging anyone from hoarding cash, which would cease to be legal tender after the deadline.

He said, “People are hoarding it. People are keeping vaults in their homes. We cannot allow them to be banks in their homes. They don’t have the licence to build bank vaults in their homes. They should release that money to the CBN because what they are doing is that they are undermining monetary policy. They are keeping that money to speculate against our currency and it is making our work difficult in CBN.”

The CBN governor added, “By 31 of January, it will be useless in their hands, so I can only just beg them to please bring it. We will take it on or before the 31. Nobody is going to harass you. If you are afraid of being harassed, trust me, we have begged the EFCC. We have begged the ICPC that they should please allow us to do our work so that people can bring more money in. So, we are begging them to bring it in. Nothing will happen to you on my honour.”

He also noted that ransom from kidnapping had reduced due to the new naira policy.

On stamp duty

The CBN governor also broke his silence on the allegation that the apex bank withheld N89trn realised from stamp duty revenues.

The governor on Tuesday expressed surprise that such conversations would come up considering the size of the banking system.

He said that the said amount was far bigger than the total asset of the entire banking industry in the country.

The apex bank boss revealed that N370.89bn had been collected between 2016 and to date.

Emefiele said, “N89tn is so large. The total asset of the banking industry if you understand accounting is about N71tn or N71.5tn. The total deposit of the banking system is N44.49tn. So, how then is it possible that stamp duty is N89tn while the deposit of banks is N44.49tn?

“So, when it became a story everywhere, we went into our records, told Banking Supervision, Banking Payment System to go into the system and rake out the total amount that had been collected on stamp duty from 2016 to date.

“We told our people in Banking Supervision to contact the banks. Let the banks give us from their records; how much they have collected from 2016 to date and tell the banks to sign on their headed paper that this is the amount they have collected on Stamp Duty from 2016 to date.

“The report that we have in CBN is that Stamp Duty collected to date is N370,886,315,505.28. These are public accounts. We owe Nigeria public accountability. Out of that, the Federal Inland Revenue or the Ministry of Finance has disbursed to Federation Accounts Allocation Committee N226,451,720,158.88.

“And the balance with the account of the CBN is N144,234,535,346.40. We did calculations and the highest collection from the oldest bank in Nigeria, First Bank, collected N71.6bn in seven years. I truly don’t know where N89tn is?”

The reaction is in response to a member of the House of Representatives, Mr Muhammed Kazaure, who claimed that Emefiele siphoned the sum of N89tn which had allegedly accrued to the federation.

However, Emefiele said, “The truth is that the CBN will not be joined in any argument with anybody because it will overheat the system. But it is important for me to say that Stamp Duty is the revenue that needs to be collected from people who are conducting electronic transfers. It is about public accounts and accountability.

“I do not want to make any statement that will overheat the system. I don’t understand how the central bank started forcing banks in 2016 to collect stamp duty because we feel it is a source of revenue generation opportunity. How can that same central bank begin to withhold N89tn? It beats our imagination that those kinds of arguments can come.

“We at the central bank have said we will continue to look for it. What have we done? We have engaged the big four audit firms, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte to go to the banks and do a forensic audit of all stamp duty.

“Maybe by the time they simulate the number of transactions, they will see it and if there is any uncollected stamp duty, we will force the banks they pay to the last one penny.”

At least 85 per cent of Nigerian doctors are planning to leave the country to seek greener pastures

This is according to the data obtained from the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors.

The report also showed that the preferred countries for immigration intentions are the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

The NARD members are of House Officers, Registrars, Senior Registrars, and Medical Officers below the level of Principal Medical Officers.

Speaking with our correspondent, the President of the association, Dr Emeka, said if the government did not take steps to address the ongoing brain drain in the country, the situation will get worse in the health sector.

“When we are saying these things, it looks as if it’s a joke. Mobility of labour is acceptable anywhere and what the government should do is to address the root causes of the immigration of doctors, as long as they don’t address it, when they see better opportunities out there, they will want to go there.

“It’s about the choices people make about themselves when they think that the government is not taking care of them. The government needs to improve on the things we have highlighted to reduce the brain drain,” he said.

He noted that as of October 2022, there were only 10,000 resident doctors in the country.

“Five months after, and we don’t have any reason to suggest that there is a downward scale of doctors migrating, if anything should be, it should be an increment in the immigration because nothing essentially has changed in terms of the working condition, infrastructure, security and all that,” he added.

Going by this figure, it means that 8,500 resident doctors plan to leave the country.

The 2023 macroeconomic outlook report released by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group recently said that aside from the considerable health infrastructural gap, Nigeria has lost many medical professionals to brain drain, leading to personnel inadequacy in the health sector.

The report said, “One of the major factors inhibiting Nigeria’s economic development has been the brain drain and knowledge gap in human capital. Knowledge as a significant driver of economies of scale can be increased by investing in education and providing better health services, which is the nation’s human capital formation.

“An equipped labour force, a stable economic environment, a thriving private sector, and robust social welfare programmes are crucial in attaining Shared Prosperity in Nigeria.”

President, Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, Victor Olojo, has said the Central Bank of Nigeria is set to clampdown on illegal Point of Sales operators in the country.

SUPERS.ng gathered that Victor Olojo said the apex bank was planning to sanitise the industry, considering its role in driving its cashless policy. He explained that agents operating under umbrellas and hawking PoS services would be the most hit.

He said, “Agents must wake up, there are rules. Agents operating under an umbrella, agents hawking PoS services, all these things would soon be curtailed. The CBN is coming with a sledgehammer very soon on agents operating outside its guidelines.

“Some of these agents are not properly registered; the minimum accepted is a kiosk, an identifiable address.”

He noted that there must be confidentiality regarding cash withdrawals and the agents must ensure their clients can carry out transactions in enclosed spaces.

2023 is expected to witness growth in PoS transactions. According to the CBN’s policy limiting withdrawals for individuals and corporates, “Customers should be encouraged to use alternative channels (Internet banking, mobile banking apps, USSD, cards/PoS, eNaira, etc.) to conduct their banking transactions.”

Commenting on this expected growth, Olojo, said, “For now, the industry is still on an upward growth. We are still growing upwardly, there is still room for a lot of growth.

“It is part of the financial inclusion agenda, everything is in line. We need to have as many agents come into the system until we get to a saturation point. We are not there yet.

“Although, more agents are needed in the rural areas than in the city and urban centers. We still expect more upward growth, because fintechs are still coming up too.”

According to him, the industry was far from a saturation point since there was a government policy promoting it and agents were making profits.

“So yes, the cashless policy is a major factor why we have an increase in the number of agents,” he said.

Olojo explained that even though there were initial fears on an upward review in PoS transaction charges, that was highly unlikely.

He said, “As regards charges, the CBN is currently working out a plan for mobile money and agents to have access to funds. This is to those that are credible, those that are properly registered. The five per cent or three per cent that applies to people that are taking more than is required from the banks may not apply to mobile agents.

“So, there would be no need for an increment in charges. However, if that doesn’t come in in time, obviously the cost will be transferred.”

“It is part of the financial inclusion agenda, everything is in line. We need to have as many agents come into the system until we get to a saturation point. We are not there yet.

“Although, more agents are needed in the rural areas than in the city and urban centers. We still expect more upward growth, because fintechs are still coming up too.”

According to him, the industry was far from a saturation point since there was a government policy promoting it and agents were making profits.

“So yes, the cashless policy is a major factor why we have an increase in the number of agents,” he said.

Olojo explained that even though there were initial fears on an upward review in PoS transaction charges, that was highly unlikely.

He said, “As regards charges, the CBN is currently working out a plan for mobile money and agents to have access to funds. This is to those that are credible, those that are properly registered. The five per cent or three per cent that applies to people that are taking more than is required from the banks may not apply to mobile agents.

“So, there would be no need for an increment in charges. However, if that doesn’t come in in time, obviously the cost will be transferred.”

According to the NIBSS, there are 986,252 registered PoS terminals in Nigeria (this is based on the last time it updated this record, July 2021). The total number of deployed PoS terminals as of January 2023 was 955,234. Although according to Olojo, there are over 1.4 million mobile money and banking agents.