I have officially received the notice of the revised cash withdrawal limits from my bank, which confirms that the central bank of Nigeria has made some changes to cash withdrawal. After carefully looking into the new policy, I can only see the desperation of the CBN to extort money from Nigerians. I will explain more but before then, below are the message I received from my bank.


Dear Customer,
Kindly be informed of the following CBN regulatory directives concerning cash withdrawal effective nationwide from January 9, 2023. Individuals can only make a maximum cash withdrawal of N100,000 per week over the counter.

A 5% processing fee will be charged for withdrawals over this limit. Corporate organisations can only make a maximum cash withdrawal of N500,000 per week over the counter. A 10% processing fee will be charged for withdrawals over this limit.

Third-party cheques above N50,000 will not be eligible for cash payment over the counter; the Cheque limit of Nio,000,000 through clearing for 3rd party account settlement still subsists. Only denominations of N200 and below shall be loaded into ATMs, and you will only be able to make a maximum ATM cash withdrawal of N20,000 per day or a cumulative N100,000 per week.

You will only be able to make a maximum cash withdrawal of N20,000 per day Via POS terminals. E Cash withdrawals above the prescribed limits are permitted only in Compelling circumstances, not exceeding N5,000,000 for individuals and N10,000,000 for corporate organisations once a month. In such circumstances, a 5% and 10% processing fee for individuals and corporate, respectively, will apply, and the following documents should be provided:

• Valid means of identification (National ID, International Passport, Driver's Licence).
• Bank Verification Number (BVN)
• Notarised declaration of the purpose for the cash withdrawal.
• Written approval from the Organization's Managing Director for Corporate drawee.

I am not a banker and might not be knowledgeable enough to know the positive and negative impacts of the new withdrawal limit policy by CBN. However, I do know that when a business person knows that he will not be able to withdraw the money kept in the bank without paying 5-10% withdrawal charges, he might look for alternative means to save his money for easy access and do you mean that the primary purpose of cashless policy has been defeated.

What about those individuals handling housing projects that must pay their workers daily, so they have to pay CBN 5-10% to get their money, or should they avoid keeping their money in the bank, which means risking their lives as well? It's evident that most of the policies of CBN and the Nigerian government are not for the benefit of her citizens but only channelled into earning more money for the government, even in this worst hardship that Nigerians are struggling to eat.

I remembered what they did with mobile telecommunications in Nigeria, increasing the tax on data and airtime recharge. They also made the first changes with the bank that made Nigerians pay for depositing money to the bank. The new policy doesn't encourage cashless policy but will force people to start keeping their money at home instead of saving in the bank.

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