Woes of Cashless policy in Nigeria

In June 1, 2012 the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced the first face of cashless policy in Nigeria which was a to make the commercial capital of Nigeria Lagos State fully cashless within 1 year but it was a today failure. One would have expected CBN to go back to the table and tackle the factors that prevented the policy from been a success. Instead on July 1, 2013 CBN. Decided to start phase two of the policy in 5 other cities including the FCT. This time around they came up with new rules of charges on cash deposit of more than ₦500000. From there own perspective it was a great idea but they didn't put into consideration that bank were already charging the customer on bank transfer of even ₦100 so instead of the customer going cashless the exploited the loophole like paying money in multiples of ₦400000 and various from. On July 1, 2014 CBN introduced the final phase which include the full country going cashless but it was disappointing to see that the new policy did not favour the customers but instead it only favour the Banks.

Here is a list of such policies

• Introduction of Remote-on-Us which is a charge of ₦65 that is charged on customer when they use other banks ATM more than 3 times monthly. Bank now put a lower single withdrawal limit on there ATMs because of this.

• Charges on POS owners which is 0.75% on transactions although the charge may seems small but for a country just introducing cashless policy I think for the first two years of adoption this charges should be dropped

• Debit/credit card maintenance fee of ₦100 per month is also a charge that only favours the bank and not the customer as bank now debit you for maintenance and other bank charges they already charge

** Conclusion **

I think CBN should go back to the planning table and provide a more structured plan for cashless policy adaption and this new plan should be customer-centric than rather centred on Bank if the cashless policy is to be implemented in Nigeria

** GOD BLESS NIGERIA**