The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has reacted to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s plan to begin to charge bank customers making cash deposits and withdrawals above a certain threshold saying the time frame was too short and that it would have disruptive effects on bank customers and other stakeholders.
The Director-General, Muda Yusuf, in a statement asked for more time for the implementation of the cashless policy. Yusuf said that the CBN circular should have given a much longer notice instead of just a day notice of implementation.
According to Yusuf; “This would have short term disruptive effects. We implore the CBN to give at least two months to allow for players in the economy to adequately prepare themselves. This is particularly so for investors who are major players in the retail segment of the economy.
It is difficult to justify the decision to penalize cash depositors. The emphasis should be on discouraging cash transactions and withdrawals, which is more in consonance with the objective of the policy.”
Although Yusuf commended the policy, he also called for more time for enlightenment and incentives to be put in place by the CBN. According to him, the transitioning process requires robust enlightenment, consultation and stakeholder engagements.
While giving reasons to why the cashless policy is commendable he said it would entail the reduction in ATM fraud, internet fraud and other fraudulent activities on the various electronic platform. Yusuf also noted that financial institutions should continuously strive to raise the level of confidence of citizens in the electronic payment platform.
The CBN policy would attract 3% processing fees for withdrawals and 2% processing fees for deposits for amounts above N500,000 for individual accounts.
Also, for corporate accounts, the Deposits Money Banks (DMBs) would charge 5% processing fees for withdrawals and 3% processing fee for lodgments of amounts above N3,000,000.