THE CBN INSTRUCTS BANKS TO ISSUE NEW NAIRA NOTES.

The Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Zamfara have been warned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide the new naira notes to Point of Sale (POS) operators immediately or risk punishment.

The allegation was delivered on Friday at a sensitization session for POS operators in Gusau by the CBN Controller for the state, Alhaji Buhari Abbas.

He said that the action was necessary to ease the hardship that locals and businesses were facing as a result of the state’s low level of fresh naira note circulation.

The decision was issued in the midst of a public outcry about the lack of new bank notes, as local merchants and companies refused to accept transactions in old naira notes.

He warned that defaulters would face sanctions and stated that the apex bank would not support currency hoarding.

The controller asked POS operators with Gusau-based bank accounts to access the new notes from the DBMs and notify problematic financial institutions.

The daily transaction cap, in his estimation, is N500,000 for POS operators and N10,000 for each individual bank account holder.

Buhari instructed the POS operators to stop charging customers more than the standard fee and threatened legal action against violating operators.

The previous naira notes are still valid as of midnight on January 31, he stated.

The state’s Chairman of POS operators, Alhaji Kabiru Abubakar, praised the initiative and pledged to uphold the customary cash withdrawal fee.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Gusau’s merchants and companies refused to accept the old naira notes since doing so would have been difficult.

Due to the state’s lack of new naira notes, the situation deteriorated, almost causing a commercial collapse.