CBN Cashless Policy: Banks should be more accommodating towards customers

• By  BravoNews
• Published:  October  10, 2014

 Nigerian banks are putting unnecessary hardship on the banking public with the operation of the cashless policy of the CBN. Apart from unnecessary charges, their ATM operation is putting millions of customers in difficulty. Quite often the ATM machines refuse to dispense cash. This is noticeable on weekends and public holidays. Some banks insiders interviewed in the course of this story gave network failure as the reason for this. But there are many instances in which banks deliberately fail to load their ATM machines on weekends.
Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Mr Godwin Emefiele and his management team need to urgently look into this issue of ATM operations and some other service charges they collect in relation to money transfer and others. This is the opinion of  a large number of people . With the advent of internet banking, and other self-service facilities, it should be challenging for banks to justify levying high fees on customers who wish to have access to safe deposit boxes or transfer reasonable sum of money. Sadly, this is not happening in Nigeria. Consumers are finding out that the privilege of getting safe deposit lockers to store their valuables comes when only certain criteria are met: Like paying exorbitant fees, in some cases maintaining accounts of at least one million Naira, negotiating past a host of arduous policies designed by financial institutions to act as a deterrent and, finally, having to wait in a queue given the limited availability of the facility.
Customers are left with few options to store their valuables, in the face of such prohibitive measures. The costs for such a service need to be subsidised since clients pay a fee for almost every transaction that a bank offers today. Banks must not be discriminatory towards fee-paying customers when it comes to offering services that ensure their security. Historically, customers have always been dependant on banks to ensure peace of mind and security of their deposits. It is the core element of the business that these institutions must live up to.