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Banks in the country provoked outrage on Tuesday when they imposed a N60,000 per day limit on Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawals, citing a new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy.
Previously, the domestic withdrawal limit was N150,000.00 per day.
But the CBN has come out to disown the banks in that aspect, saying that it never asked the banks to limit domestic withdrawals on ATMs.
The CBN Director of Corporate Communications, Ibrahim Muazu, told Vanguard, on Tuesday that the apex bank policy was just on ATM cash withdrawal limit of $300 per day and POS/online purchases abroad which has a limit of $50,000 per annum.
According to him, the CBN policy does not affect or stipulate any limit for domestic (Naira).
Muazu explained that the objective of the new policy was to curb abuse of the exchange system while preventing people from trading with their ATMs abroad which, according to him, eats into the country’s foreign reserve.
Some of the banks indicated that they can allow $10,000 withdrawal in a single transaction that would cover for one month maximum limit while others have imposed $300 daily limit on POS/online spending.
But Muazu said that the $10,000 single transaction limit even if it stays within the $50,000 annual limit stipulated by CBN is in violation of the rule.