Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has tendered his unreserved apology to Nigerians over the rise in failed electronic banking transactions.
Speaking at the end of the two-day monetary policy committee meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, Emefiele expressed that it was his heartfelt regret that Nigerians have been facing untold hardship over a couple of days as a result of failed electronic banking transactions.
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Emefiele had launched the naira redesign policy to fight corruption, vote buying and teeter, the country towards better use of electronic banking. This has however created untold hardship as Nigerians who have money in their bank account are left stranded simply because they have no access to cash. Since then, electronic means of transaction had crashed due to massive pressure mounted on it.
Speaking on the matter, Emefiele said the apex’s bank payments system management department made efforts to ensure that downtime on electronic banking channels were quickly resolved.
“I must apologize, yes online channels fail. But no doubt it is as a result of the deluge of online transactions that hit the banking industry. But it is being resolved,” Emefiele said.
“On a daily basis, our payments system management department monitor the online payment platforms so as to make sure that when there is a downtime, they are quickly resolved so that transactions can go on smoothly.”
He lauded the Fintechs for facilitating smooth transactions for Nigerians by reducing the strain on traditional banks.
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Speaking on availability of cash in the economy, Emefiele explained that the implementation of the naira redesign policy has worked perfectly as expected. He expressed further that the there has been a reduction in currency outside the banks.
“At the beginning of the naira redesign policy we said that there was about N3.23 trillion in circulation out of which only N500 billion was held in the banking system, while N2.73 trillion was outside the banks,” the CBN governor said.
“It was published yesterday that currency in circulation is close to N1 trillion. CBN will continue to pump the newly redesigned currency into the market.
“The truth is that at some point we will need to reassess to know whether the currency in circulation has attained an optimal level so as to put in place measures to ensure that we don’t go to the level where we were when people kept money outside the banking system for their benefits”.
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