Commercial banks have begun requesting their clients’ old N500 and N1,000 bills.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has denied ordering banks to collect old naira notes from citizens, but the situation has nonetheless occurred.
In the meantime, inspections revealed that the CBN’s cash return portal instructed users holding old N500 and old N1,000 notes below N500,000 to go to their bank to make the deposit, which ran counter to the apex bank’s assertion.
Online newspaper TheCable visited banks in several areas of Lagos on Saturday to assess the situation.
10 states have petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn Buhari’s order on outdated naira notes.
As clients tried to enter the banking halls, there were lengthy lines outside many banks.
A bank representative was reading out the names of customers at the Access Bank in Megida bus stop, Ayobo.
A customer can enter the bank after hearing his or her name called.
The bank representative stated that service to customers would terminate at 2:00 pm.
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As this was going on, several customers outside the bank complained that they couldn’t get a reference number from the CBN portal.
I arrived here at 10 a.m. It is about 2 o’clock. Validation error is displayed on the CBN portal. Customer John told TheCable, “I can’t generate the reference code thus I can’t go in.
Customers were permitted to deposit their old notes at Access Bank and First Bank locations in Iyana Ipaja.
Customers were also being served by the GTB branches in Ikorodu and Airport Road.
TheCable noticed that only people who had generated the CBN reference number were being allowed in at a Sterling Bank branch in Ikorodu.
Security personnel at a United Bank for Africa (UBA) branch nearby reported that the bank had finished serving customers for the day.
On Monday, we’ll be back in business, he said.
A small group of customers were waiting to be served outside the Access Bank branch in Ikorodu at the time of the visit (2 pm).
“They opened early in the day to gather the notes. But now they’ve shut down,” a client complained.
Another customers claimed that they were waiting to see whether the bank employees would let them inside or give them a time to return.
TheCable noticed that the majority of customers were using their phones to try to generate the CBN reference number, which is required in order to access the bank.
(The CABLE)
