CBN Insists No Deadline Extension For Old Naira Notes, Increases Interest Rate To 17.5%

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, has said that the apex bank will not extend the January 31, 2023 deadline for the old version of the redesigned higher-denominations of the Naira notes to cease to function as legal tenders.

The CBN governor said about N1.5trillion had been recovered from circulation as at last week. He expects that before the January 31 date, up to N2 trillion would have been collected from circulation.

Mr Emefiele said the bank had intensified efforts to ensure the swap of the old and new notes.

He disclosed this on Tuesday after the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria in Abuja.

Meanwhile, the MPC has continued in its aggressive measure to tame inflation by increasing official interest rate by another 100 basis points. By that, the monetary policy rate was increased from 16.5% to 17.5%. The committee held other parameters around the MPR.

Addressing journalists at the end of its meeting, CBN governor, Emefiele said the little drop in inflation rate to 21.36% in December was not enough to hold or reduce the interest rate.