Confusion has continued to trail the daily withdrawal limit by the customers in the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) as some banks claimed ignorance of the directives when contacted.
Media reports yesterday stated that the banks have limited the daily withdrawal to N60,000 in compliance with the CBN circular on the naira debit cards. When contacted yesterday some banks said they only read the story in the pages of papers. Banks like Jaiz bank and UBA denied any knowledge of a directive on the reduction of withdrawal limit by the CBN on local transactions. The Corporate communication head of Jaiz, Ahmed Idris said, “our customers can still withdraw up to N150 thousand on our ATM, I am not aware of any directive to reduce that limit”.
The Central Bank of Nigeria in a circular to the banks recently informed them limit holders of naira denominated debit and credit cards to a maximum of $300 per day which is the equivalent of N60,000 when using the cards abroad. Some banks last week applied the directives to the local users of Naira and Credit and Debit cards by also limiting the domestic cash withdrawal on their ATM to N60,000 maximum daily.
GT Bank which is among the banks that applied the N60,000 limit yesterday reversed its decision to the N150 thousand daily limit. Cornelius Onuoha, the media consultant to the GTB who confirmed the development to Daily Trust said: “The latest information is that it has been revived upwards, there was a downward review as at Friday, Saturday last week but that has been reviewed upwards as at Monday this week” He said the initial downward review was informed by the tight dollar liquidity and the fact that the bank wanted to be able to meet the demand of its mass number of customers
“The CBN had sometimes in April asked the banks to look at the possibility of a review and GTB was not even the first to implement, it was a general industry action, but there is no need to panic as our customers can continue to enjoy N150 thousand withdrawal limit they were used to,´ he said Some of banks spoken to also confirmed the reduction in the cash withdrawal to N60,000.
When Contacted the CBN spokesperson Ibrahim Mua’zu said there is no such directives from the CBN to limit the daily withdrawal to N60,000. He said the CBN regards such actions as the banks’ initiatives and has no hand in it.
