The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered banks to begin collecting the old N500 and N1,000 notes from the public with immediate effect, setting a maximum collection limit of N500,000 per individual. The CBN emphasized that these old currencies are no longer legal tender. A bank source explained that the CBN directed banks to handle the collection rather than requiring people to go to CBN offices, which had become difficult to access.
A CBN official instructed the public to “go to your bank but fill out the form before you go. Go with the reference code you generate. With your code, banks will collect it from you. But if it is more than 500,000, you will go to the CBN and deposit it.” Earlier, the CBN had opened a portal on its website, making it mandatory for anyone wishing to return old notes to fill out a form and generate a reference code.
On Thursday, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele ordered banks to make the old N200 notes available to Nigerians. This followed President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)’s statement that the old N200 note would remain legal tender until April 10, 2023, while urging Nigerians to deposit their old N500 and N1,000 notes with the CBN. However, protests across several states over the scarcity of new naira notes prompted the CBN, after meeting with bank leaders, to instruct banks to collect the higher denominations.
Comments are closed for this story.