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Mobile money/Point of Sales agents in Abuja and Lagos have been excluded from the Central Bank of Nigera’s newly launched cash swap programme.
CBN outlined some guidelines for the cash swap programme in a Frequently Asked Questions’ document.
This is coming ahead of CBN’s January 31 deadline for phasing out of old N1,000, N500 and N200 notes.
Only five banks have been approved to engage in the cash swap programme. They are: Access Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, and First City Monument Bank.
It read;
“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).
“Selected agents in all the 36 states (except Lagos state and FCT, Abuja). Lagos and Abuja agents are excluded from this.”
PoS agents are barred from using the new notes for their regular transactions. Issuing a warning to ths effect, the CBN said;
“There will be severe sanctions such as de-listing as an agent, withhold of any applicable benefit, de-list from future programmes, negative report to bank & CBN and other such penalties as directed by regulatory authorities.”
Each agent’s name, BVN number, and operator’s name are required before the new notes will be released. The document added that the bank would also verify the agent’s picture and finger print.
