CBN to begin nationwide rollout of cashless policy
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that it is considering extending its cashless policy to all the states in the country in the next six months.
The Deputy Governor (Operations), CBN, Mr. Tunde Lemo, disclosed this in Lagos recently.
According to him, the apex bank had identified the challenges encountered in the initiative, which is aimed at reducing the dominance of cash in the system and is working towards resolving them.
The central bank recently extended the cashless policy to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Abia, Anambra, Kano, Ogun and Rivers states and has also announced the deferment of charges for those who wish to withdraw or lodge cash above the limits in those states to October.
But Lemo explained: 'We know there will be constraints. The constraints are there for us to see, dimension and solve them. Of course, we will solve all those complaints. Now we know the areas that are well served, we know the areas that we need to deploy technology and we know where we just need to overlay services because we know the facilities are just there.
'Of course, that was why we deferred the payment of charges for three months, exactly the same thing we did last year, just to allow some adjustments so that in the next three months, it will be very comfortable using those channels. So within the next six months, it might be convenient for us also to roll out to the entire country because we are quite aware that it is possible for people to arbitrage by moving cash around states that are very close to areas where we are implementing cashless.
'Although we are yet to confirm, but we hope that within six months' post implementation in the five states and the FCT, we should be able to go to other parts of Nigeria,' he added.
On his part, the CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, noted that there had been significant increase in the number of Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, number of mobile money operators as well as significant improvement in the number and value of transactions on a daily basis.
Sanusi argued that the scheme recorded a huge success in Lagos state, saying that the central bank intends to improve on the lessons learnt from the state where it was firstly introduced. - Thisday.