Old Naira Notes: Banks Foot-drag As CBN Keeps Mum

Despite the ruling of the Supreme Court that the old N500 and N1000 notes remain in circulation until December 2023, banks in the country have been slow to comply with the injunction.

This is as many Nigerians have continued to reject the old notes even as banks have kept keep mum on whether they accept the old notes or not.

LEADERSHIP’s findings reveal that while few banks have started to pay out the old N500 and N1000 notes to customers, a majority of the banks are yet to commence, insisting on obtaining instructions from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Supreme Court, in its ruling last week, directed that the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes remain in circulation until December 2023. However, LEADERSHIP’s findings reveal that the old notes are yet to be acceptable by the public.

In Lagos, findings revealed that while few banks were paying out with old N500 and N1,000 notes, most of the banks, especially within Lagos and its environs, were yet to comply with court directive.

LEADERSHIP reports that Sterling Bank at Iyana Ipaja and Access Bank paid out the old N500 and N1000 currency denominations to their customers and even loaded same in their ATMs.

However, while there were unconfirmed reports that some banks had started paying out the old noted in Abuja, a senior official of Unity Bank told our correspondent that the bank has not started paying out the old notes because they have not received any direction from CBN.

She said as a matter of fact, they do not even have the old notes to begin pay out to customers and the CBN has not begun the disbursement of the old notes.

The management staff who asked not to be named said the bank was still expecting direction from the apex bank on the way forward.

Also, Fidelity Bank was not paying out the old N500 and N1000 notes when LEADERSHIP visited its branch in Utako area of Abuja, saying the old notes were not available for payment to customers.

A branch manager with the bank told our reporter they only pay out the new banknotes.

“As a matter of fact, we don’t even have cash, much less old notes,” he said in a chat with our reporter. According to him, Fidelity Bank had not received the new naira notes since the Supreme Court judgement.

Majority of the banks, it was learnt, were awaiting a directive from the CBN mandating them to start collecting old notes.

Meanwhile, commercial bus drivers and traders were rejecting the old notes yesterday while those who accepted them would only accept at half their value. A hawker who sells cold drinks said she would accept the old N500 note at the value of N200 and the N1,000 note for N500.

A bus driver who rejected the old note said although he was aware of the court ruling, he was not accepting it as no one would take it from him.

“The one I collected yesterday, the filling station rejected it and even “agbero” (garage touts) would not collect it from me. So I am not collecting it again from any passenger,” he said.

Meanwhile, the CBN portal for returning old notes remained open, allowing individuals to return a maximum of N500,000 in old notes to their banks while deposits above N500,000 go to the CBN.

The portal, which requires Bank Verification Number (BVN) for individuals and Tax Identification Number (TIN) for corporates, would however allow only one deposit per person or corporate.