Cash Swap: CBN Okays Access Bank, UBA, 3 More, Bars Lagos, Abuja POS Operators

Bukola Olanrewaju January 24, 2023 BUSINESS, Banking and Finance Leave a comment

The Central Bank of Nigeria has approved only five Deposits Money Banks (DMOs) to participate in its newly launched cash swap programme.

The five banks approved to engage in the programme are Access Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, and First City Monument Bank.

The Cash Swap Programme launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was targeted at speeding up the permeation of the new Naira notes, particularly, in the rural areas of the country.

The apex bank has directed deposit money banks, super agents as well as mobile money operators to swap the old N200, N500 and N1,000 for the newly redesigned notes.

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The development came as the January 31 deadline for the phasing out of the old N1,000, N500 and N200 notes approaches.

Hence, they are expected to swap up to N10,000 per person while amounts above N10,000 are to be treated as deposits.

Findings from Business Remarks revealed that not all agents can participate. This is open to only selected agents profiled by the super-agent/MMO/bank and submitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria and participating banks (Access, Zenith, UBA, First, FCMB).

This was included in the Frequently Asked Questions document released to selected agents and obtained by our correspondent on Monday, the CBN provided some guidelines for the cash swap programme.

Business Remarks also observed that
excluded mobile money/Point of Sales agents in Abuja and Lagos have been excluded from participating in the cash swap programme.

More information also disclosed that the agents can only get the new notes from one of these designated banks (Zenith, First Bank, Access, UBA, FCMB). However, they are required to have a bank account with that bank and their operators (super agent/MMO/bank) would have pre-registered them with the bank where they have an account.

While urging the agents to open a bank account or wallet for customers with bank accounts, CBN disclosed that an agent can only get up to N500,000 new notes weekly for the programme.

Also, each agent is expected to record all transactions performed with the new notes and submit the record to the operator (super agent/MMO/bank).