culled from: punch.com
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed banks in Yenagoa to continually education their customers to migrate to available electronic channels ahead of its planned introduction of cashless policy in Bayelsa State in June, this year.
Bayelsa is predominantly riverine with all the banks concentrated in the capital city leaving the other local government council area without banks with the result that those residing in the far flung hinterland of the state are compelled to travel to Yenagoa to transact business.
Though the policy started on January 1, 2012 in Lagos State, the service charges/fees would not apply until March 30, 2012 in order to give people time to migrate to electronic channels and experience the infrastructure that has been put in place.
The Yenagoa Branch Controller, Central Bank of Nigeria, Prince Basil Udo-Utun gave the charge at the Yenagoa Bankers’ Committee 2011 end of the year party held in Yenagoa.
According to him, the CBN policy on cash based transaction stipulates a ‘Cash Handling Charge’ on daily cash withdrawals or cash deposits that exceed N150,000 for individuals and N1,000,000 for corporate bodies.
He said, “I am using this medium to advice banks in Yenagoa to continually educate their customers to migrate to the available electronic channels, where possible demonstrate the cost implications of transacting high volume of cash from June 30, 2012 when the policy takes effects in the others not excluding Bayelsa State.”
Prince Udo-Utun said, the policy aims to strategically reduce (not eliminate) the amount of physical cash (coins and notes) circulating in the economy and encourage more electronic-based transactions for payment for goods and services.
“For now, transactions initiated from Lagos and affecting an account outside shall attract charges/fees (when the specific transactions are above the limit).). Example a deposit made from Lagos State above the limit into an account in Yenagoa, shall result in the initiator paying the relevant charges/fess, and while the account which it is paid into in Yenagoa shall not be impacted,” he said.
Reflecting on the industry’s activities and performance in the last twelve months, both at the local and national levels, he said, though the Yenagoa clearing house commenced activities on August 2, 2011 with 12 participating settlement banks out of the 13 approved but declined to 11 due to the recent mergers by some of the Deposit Money Banks.
“Clearing activities in the zone took place in 102 working days in 2011. The total volume and value of financial instruments cleared were 12,474 and N17,259,840,680.15 respectively. It is important to note that there was an increase in both volumes and value from month to month except in December where there was decline in volume. From the foregoing, it is evident that Bayelsa State is set to embrace the cashless policy of the Federal Government,” he said.
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