The Central Bank of Nigeria has been urged to address the timing around the deadline for the circulation of old Naira notes and replacement by the new notes.
Director Research and Strategy at Chapel Hill Denham, Tajudeen Ibrahim, disclosed this while speaking on the issues surrounding the implementation of the Cashless Policy of the Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
He described the intention of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the redesign of the Naira notes as a very good one which should be embraced by all and sundry.
He added that the Central Bank of Nigeria will be able to take more control of Cash withdrawals by Nigerians generally and also the utilisation of cash for transaction and Other purposes by individuals and Corporate organisations.
The Central Bank of Nigeria according to him will also be able to account for the volume of Cash in circulation with the only downside being the timing which he says should be addressed.
He added that the policy remains a very good one from the stables of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
On whether the nation is not jumping the gun with the implementation of the Policy considering the challenges inherent in the policy, Mr Ibrahim said the data supplied by the Central Bank of Nigeria through the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, NIBSS, shows that cashless transactions for the first 11 months of the year shows that Nigeria recorded 318.66 Trillion Naira in cashless Transactions.
He added that it shows a 42 percent increase for the corresponding period in 2021.
Going Further, He added that the breakdown of the numbers shows that Nigerian Interbank Payment accounted for about 98 percent of the transactions while POS Terminals accounted for 2 percent of the transactions.
He said this numbers show that Nigerians and Nigeria have embraced the cashless policy with the only thing left the prodding from the Federal Government.
He said that the cash outside of the banking system as of November 2022 was 2.6 Trillion Naira of Cash outside the banking system which shows a decline of 178 Billion Naira and an indication that more Nigerians are doing less of cash based transactions and moving more into Electronic Banking and Other non cash based transactions.
On if the campaign to get Nigerians on board especially in rural areas is enough, he said the policy will not affect them negatively.
