Anxiety Over Liquidity Issues In Commercial Banks

 

  • CBN: we have enough cash

 

There was anxiety among bank customers in Lagos at the weekend over the uncertain state of liquidity of banks as many customers complained they were not able to withdraw cash from their bank accounts.

A woman who identified herself simply as Mama Favour complained bitterly that her efforts to cash the cheque of N150,000 her  husband issued over the past three days have been futile. According to her, she had visited no fewer than three branches of her bank which is one of the old generation banks to cash the cheque but no luck.

“My husband gave me the cheque on Monday to cash and buy things to take care of me and my new baby. When I visited the first branch, my time was wasted. After waiting for so long, I was told there was no cash. Same thing happened at the second branch. The same thing is about happening here but I will not take that because we will starve,” she said.

Another customer who came with a cheque of N500,000 was told there was no cash. The customer who identified himself simply as Jude said he needed the cash because it was part-payment for a contractual deal. “I need the cash to go into the market to buy the goods. A lot of people no longer accept transfers because of the issue of fake alerts,” he said.

One of the workers of the bank said the cash crunch is a general problem, adding that the banks were unable to access liquidity as much as they needed.

Asked if it was an open market operation (OMO) designed to tame inflation by mopping up cash from circulation, he said he wasn’t too sure. “I don’t think so because the timing will be inappropriate because people will need more cash as the Yuletide approaches. So I don’t believe it is OMO,” he said.

But the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it has enough cash to meet the cash needs of Nigerians that request for it.

What that means is that the CBN has supplied enough cash to the DMBs enough to last through the year.

There are concerns among the public that the cash squeeze might scuttle their Christmas purchases. To address these fears, Nwanisobi assured “the general public that the pressures usually experienced during the end of the year for cash will be fully satisfied by the CBN”.

He, however, urged “the general public and our esteemed stakeholders that apart from cash, other electronic payment channels, including the eNaira are also available to satisfy the varied transaction needs of all stakeholders”.

Bank customers had besieged their banks on Thursday and Friday to make cash withdrawals but were disappointed when their banks told them there wasn’t enough cash to dispense.

However, a staff of a commercial bank in Abuja confided in The Nation when he pointed accusing fingers at the unscrupulous behaviour of many DMBs.

The bank staff who would not want to be identified confirmed that many DMBs were hoarding cash, especially freshly minted N1,000 and N500 notes.

The DMBs she said: “May be keeping the mint notes for political godfathers who will need a lot of cash to spend next year for campaigns and other political expenses.”

 

-Thenation

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