The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said on Saturday the new policy on cash withdrawal from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) would benefit banks and their customers.
The CBN said on Tuesday customers withdrawing cash from other banks ATMs would now be charged N100 for every N20,000.
The directive will take effect on March 1.
The CBN’s Acting Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department, John Onojah, stated this when he featured on Channels Television’s Sunrise programme on Saturday.
He said complaints of cash shortage at bank ATMs would be a thing of the past with the implementation of the policy.
Onojah said: “We have gotten the commitment of the banks to ensure that you don’t go to the ATMs and be told that there is no money.
“We have ensured that when you get to the bank, at least we have set a minimum of N20,000 that you can withdraw at your own wish.
“The third one is to say that even in remote locations, you will have machines that are there, not on the bank premises.
“Then on the side of the banks, deploying machines are quite expensive, they are capital intensive, I wouldn’t tell you how much it costs a bank to deploy just one machine.
“And so, we need to be able to encourage them to at least do what we call cost recovery. It is a balanced circular that came out.
While we look at the side of the bank, at least they should be to recover their cost. We also want to ensure that the consumer, the customer to the bank at any point in time have access to cash.”