New Naira Notes: Banks Hoarding N4.5b Redesigned Notes – CBN

A few commercial banks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, have come under fire from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for allegedly refusing to disburse N4.5 billion in redesigned notes that were assigned to them.

Maxwell Okafor, the controller of the CBN branch in Rivers State, revealed this on Friday while leading an enforcement team to certain commercial banks and markets in Port Harcourt with the newly redesigned notes.

When asked why many consumers weren’t receiving the new naira notes, Okafor disclosed that the CBN had distributed approximately N4.5 billion of them to commercial banks in the state between Thursday and Friday.

In addition, he voiced worry that some state banks were impeding the CBN’s attempts to compel the distribution of the new naira notes by keeping them in their bank vaults.

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“We have been keeping an eye on the distribution of the new naira note, and our assessment is not positive. One of the banks we visited wasn’t issuing the new naira notes, he stated.