The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that it supplies banks with more of the newly designed Naira notes as concerns over their apparent disappearance increase.
Dr Isa AbdulMumim, the CBN’s acting director of corporate communications, emailed a statement to our correspondent on Sunday stating this. Banks are expected to distribute the new currencies to their clients through ATMs and over-the-counter transactions.
The CBN’s statement read, “We wish to reiterate that the new and old currency notes have been circulating side by side, just as the bank has been receiving a good quantity of the redesigned banknotes from the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Limited.
“Furthermore, we are committed to supplying the approved indent for the smooth running of the economy. We, therefore, urge members of the public to disregard any report suggesting a phase-out of the redesigned currency.”
The CBN reiterated that the redesigned and old notes would continue to be accepted as legal tender and circulate side-by-side for transactions until the December 31, 2023 deadline, when the old N1000, N500, and N200 banknotes will eventually be phased out.
The PUNCH recently reported that the country’s currency in circulation jumped by N701.4tn in one month to N1.6tn in March 2023 after the CBN reversed its policy on the naira redesign.
According to the CBN, currency-in-circulation is defined as currency outside the central bank’s vaults; that is, all legal tender currencies in the hands of the public and in the vaults of the Deposit Money Banks.
The country’s currency in circulation had dipped by 235.03 percent to N982.09bn at the end of February from N3.29tn as of October 2022 due to the CBN’s naira redesign policy.
Figures obtained from the CBN revealed that N2.3tn was mopped up from circulation during the period under review.
The report added that the hardest hit by the policy were the most vulnerable members of the population (the poor, the unbanked, and the rural dwellers).
The Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, had in October 2022, announced plans to redesign the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes.
The governor decried the challenges associated with currency management, including the hoarding of banknotes by public members. Statistics show that over 80 percent of currency in circulation was outside commercial banks’ vaults.
