CBN to roll out N5000 note in March 2014

 

 

 

The Central Bank has disclosed at the weekend that the initial  abandoned project due to the rejection by Nigerians is now a soon concluded plan.                                                                                                                              The Deputy Governor of CBN, Tunde Lemo, disclosed at the NIBSS 20th anniversary conference held at Lagos that in a month or two from now that the N5000 notes would be in circulation.

 According to him;" We only stopped the project due to the low level of understanding of its benefits among Nigerians, but we now plan to educate the people about the importance of the notes to our economy before we eventually launch it”.
     Speaking on the cashless initiative, Lemo noted that it has been a great success within the experimented states, stressing that the apex bank has deployed 120,000 Point of Sale (PoS) Machines across the states where cashless policy is being experimented in Nigeria. Frowning at the reports that 70 percent of the PoS deployed within the country are ineffective, he explained that a lot of things could cause the ineffectiveness”.
 The Director, Banking and Payment Systems, CBN, Mr. Dipo Fatokun, who was also a speaker at the conference, noted that the apex bank’s cashless initiative has aided the development of Nigeria,also stressing that  banks and customers now enjoy the easy flow of transactions within the banks.  He, however, noted that the Nigeria payments system, in the last two decades, has witnessed significant technological advancement, due to the operations of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement (NIBSS) Plc.
      These changes were driven in by transformations in the general financial system occasioned principally by improvements in global economic indicators, technology as well as improvement in human capital capacity and knowledge.
      Meanwhile funds transfer though the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS)’s Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system hit an all  time high of N11.63 trillion in 24.34million transactions between January and October this year.
Transactions over NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) which channels include bank branches, internet banking and mobile banking within the same period was valued at N8.16trillon in 12.53million volume of transactions. Also reports released by NIBSS discloses that the NIBSS's Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) transactions allow for a maximum of 24 hours for the beneficiary to get value, while, NIBSS's Instant Payment (NIP) transactions are done instantly.