Bankers Committee endorses N5000 note

The bankers committee on Tuesday endorsed the plan by the central bank to introduce N5000 note and the coining of lower denominations.

Addressing journalists after the committees meeting in Abuja, the Managing Director of the United Bank for Africa, Philip Oduoza said that the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will not in any way affect the nation’s economy as currently speculated.

“If it will take you 100 pieces to fit into an ATM for a N100, it will take far lesser than that if you are feeding the N5000 notes into the machine. If you are moving cash as banks normally do between various locations, you’ll find out that you’ll do less number of runs,” Mr Oduoza said.

The bank boss said that all the cost saved from handling more cash will be passed on to the end users, who are the customers of the banks.

Mr Oduoza assured Nigerians that lending rate will drop as charges for the printing of higher denominations reduces.

“One of the things that leads to high interest rate is the cost of operations, so as that goes down, you’ll find out that the benefit will also goes to the customers of the bank,” he said.

On her part, the Managing Director of the Standard Chartered Bank, Bola Adesola said that the N5, 000 note will not be imposed on any customer who wants to be paid in lower denominations.

“It is important for the banking public to also know that the Central Bank or any bank is not going to impose the N5000 note on its customers. It will be based on demand,” she said.

She said the customers will have the choice as to what denomination they would like to receive their cash.