Banks Shun CBN Directive, Collect Old ₦1,000, N500

Some banks on Saturday shunned the directives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to collect the old N500 and ₦1,000 notes from customers.

This is coming days after the apex bank denied instructing banks to continue to collect the old notes from depositors.

According to Punch, Access Bank located in Oregun, Lagos State during the week was collecting the old N500 and ₦1,000 from customers who had succeeded in filling the required form from the CBN portal.

The CBN had opened a portal on its website and mandated all those willing to return their old notes to fill out a form and generate a reference code.

An official at the Access Bank branch who spoke on the development said, “We are only collecting deposits of the old notes from those who have filled the form and generated the code. If you don’t have a code, you cannot enter because you will not be attended to. We have been open since 10 am and will close by 2 pm.”

The bank official when asked how many times a customer could come and deposit, he said, “You are required to bring all the deposits at once and it must not be more than N500,000.

“If it is more than N500,000, you have to take it to the CBN and we can collect it only once from you because the deposit will be linked to your BVN.”

At Zenith Bank on Isaac John Street, Ikeja GRA, customers also came to deposit their old N500 and ₦1,000 notes before the bank closed by 2 pm.

A security guard said, “If you don’t have a reference code, you cannot enter.”

He explained how to generate the reference code saying, “You have to go to the CBN website to register on the portal. Some people don’t know how to do it, but they have been going to cybercafés to generate the code. That is when you can deposit and it must not be more than N500,000.”

The GTBank at Olowoira in the Ojodu area of the state was also attending to depositors when one of our correspondents visited on Saturday.

A security guard who spoke on condition of anonymity with the Punch said, “We have closed already, but some people are still inside the banking hall. We closed at 1 pm and only those that had the code were allowed in.

“Some people came but because they did not have the code, we did not allow them in because it is mandatory. Those who had the code before 1 pm were allowed in and some of them are still inside now, but we have closed for today to those that are just coming.”