The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday began cash allocation to banks to ease the scarcity.

A director confirmed the development to The Nation.

The source said: “We have commenced the release of cash to the banks.

“We hope to see a marked improvement in the availability of cash in the next few days”.

The source said the CBN felt the pains of Nigerians as the cash crunch bit harder.

“We also have family members who were affected by the lack of cash.”

The CBN may have bowed to the added pressure by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which announced on Wednesday that workers would down tools in a week’s time.

Labour, which last week gave a seven-day ultimatum to the government to end the naira crisis, directed workers to stay off work and picket CBN offices in state capitals from Wednesday.

The Supreme Court on March 3 ordered that the old and new N1000 and N500 notes should remain legal tender till December 31.

The CBN hesitated before beginning limited compliance with the order as cash scarcity persisted.

The governors that took the Federal Government to court threatened to initiate contempt proceedings against Attorney-General of the Federation Abubakar Malami and CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.

The NLC lamented that its member could no longer pay transportation fares to work or for basic needs.

The CBN may have moved to forestall the likely economic consequences of a major strike.

Some bank staff confirmed to our correspondent that they got enough cash from the CBN to meet customers’ demands.

It was learnt that the old denominations were released late afternoon and early evening.

Bank sources said with the quantity of cash they had yesterday, customers can now withdraw as much as N100,000 for individuals and N500,000 for corporate bodies over the counter from today.

Disbursements from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), however, remain uncertain.

It was unclear whether banks outside Abuja also now have enough cash.

House asks banks to overhaul online/internet banking platforms

 Also yesterday, the House of Representatives asked the CBN to direct banks to immediately overhaul their online/electronic banking platforms for efficiency.

Adopting a motion at plenary, the House expressed concern about the difficulties in carrying our banking operations.

A lawmaker, Sergius Ose Ogun, said many Nigerians have lost money to the inefficiency of the online/internet banking platforms.

He said Section 2 of the CBN Act saddles it with the duty of promoting a sound financial system in Nigeria.

Ogun said: “In the wake of the recent naira redesign and cash withdrawal limit policy of the CBN, there has been an increase in the use of online and electronic banking services to carry out monetary transactions across the country.  

“The use of online or internet banking services by Nigerians in the past three months or thereabouts has been characterised by varying degrees of hitches ranging from unsuccessful electronic bank transfers, Point of Sale (POS) service failure and a host of others.

“The ineffectiveness or difficulty in using internet banking services across the online banking platforms of most banks has brought untold hardship, suffering and difficulties on Nigerians in the past three months.  

“If nothing is done by the CBN and the banks to address these difficulties or ineffectiveness, Nigerians will continue to suffer untold hardships and loss of monies to unsuccessful electronic bank transactions.”

[The Nation]