Senate to CBN: Review weekly cash withdrawals limit

The Senate has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to considerably adjust withdrawal limits in response to public outcry on its proposed weekly withdrawal on cashless policy.

The Senate’s resolution followed the adoption of recommendations of the Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Matters on the recent policy of CBN on cash withdrawals limits.

The Senate, at the plenary on Wednesday, also urged its committee to continue to embark on aggressive oversight of the CBN on its commitment to flexible adjustment of the withdrawal limit and periodically report outcome to plenary.

It also resolved to support the apex bank in the continuous implementation of transformational payments and financial industry initiatives in line with its mandate in accordance with the CBN Act.

The chairman of the committee, Sen. Uba Sani (APC-Kaduna), while presenting report of the committee, said there are many misconceptions on the cashless policy.

Sani stated that the currency denominations of N5, N10, N50, and N100 remain legal tender and were unaffected by the naira redesign policy and was available for use across the country.

The lawmaker said there are currently no processing fees applied to cash deposits, noting that unlimited amounts can be deposited without charge to enable seamless and unrestricted deposit of notes affected by currency redesign.

Sani said there have been significant achievements recorded in the Nigerian payment system since the cashless policy was introduced in 2012.

He said Nigeria has been adjudged African’s undisputed real-time and digital payments leader in real-time transaction in 2021.

This, he said translated to the 6th in terms of the world’s most developed real-time payments behind only India, China, Thailand, Brazil, and South Korea.

He said the offtake of digital and real-time payment also helped Nigeria unlock 3.2 billion dollars of additional economic output in 2021, representing about 0.6 per cent of the country’s GDP.

However, some senators, before the adoption of the recommendations of the report, raised concern over the planned implementation of CBN’s cash withdrawals limit, while some supported its implementation, saying it was for the ultimate good of the country.

The Senate, also at plenary, also confirmed President Muhammadu Buhari’s nomination of Aisha Ahmad and Edward Adamu for appointments as CBN Deputy Governors.

The Star