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By Emmanuel Adeleke
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has concluded plans to release all N200, N500 and N1,000 notes in its custody to Deposit Money Banks (DMBs).
The decision is expected to end months of hardships and pains Nigerians have been going through following a controversial CBN naira redesign policy that has caused a severe shortage of old and new naira notes across the country.
It was gathered that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had directed the DMBs to begin the disbursement of old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes to members of the public from Thursday (today).
It was also learnt that Emefiele met with the Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of the DMBs on Wednesday evening where he told them that the apex bank would start releasing all old notes in its custody to commercial banks from Thursday.
The CBN would also be cancelling all the controversial cash withdrawal limits it put in place in recent months.
Furthermore, the CBN Governor stated at the meeting that bank customers would no longer be required to generate any code before depositing their old notes.
One of the bank CEOs at the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “The CBN governor met with bank CEOs this evening virtually. It was a short meeting that lasted for just about 15 minutes. The governor said all old N1,000, N500 and N200 notes will be released to commercial banks beginning from Thursday. The CBN will start with crisp old notes after which the ones deposited by DMBs will be returned. The plan is to flood the economy with cash and ameliorate the challenges Nigerians have been passing through,”
