The Senate will on Friday grill two deputy governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria over the cash withdrawal limit policy unveiled by the apex bank on Tuesday.
The red chamber planned to seek clarifications on the new directive which restricts over-the-counter cash withdrawal by individuals and organisations to 100,000 hundred thousand and 500,000 hundred thousand naira respectively, per week.
It also limits cash withdrawals via point-of-sale machines and automated teller machines to 20,000 thousand naira daily and 100,000 hundred thousand naira weekly.
According to a memo signed by the CBN’s Director of Banking Supervision, Haruna Mustafa, withdrawals above the thresholds would attract processing fees of five per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, for individuals and corporate entities going forward.
In addition, third-party cheques above 50,000 thousand naira shall not be eligible for OTC payment while extant limits of 10million naira on clearing cheques still remains.
The circular also directed banks to load only 200hundred naira and lower denominations into their ATMs and restricted withdrawal to 20, 000 thousand naira per day from ATMs.
The policy which will become effective on January 9, 2023, had generated criticisms but the CBN clarified on Wednesday that PoS operators could apply for waivers.
However, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, directed the Senate Committee on Banking to grill the two re-appointed deputy governors of the CBN, Aisha Ahmad, and Edward Adamu, who will be screened on Friday, on the new cash withdrawal policy.
The Director of Corporate Communications of the Central Bank, Osita Nwanisobi, has said that Point-of-Sale operators can take advantage of an exemption to request more cash beyond the new limit.he noted that there is an exemption stipulated in the newly released circular, which PoS operators can take advantage of, based on the requirements and in line with the amount of transactions they process.
