Nigerians are groaning under heavy weight of record and unexplained bank charges that now erode confidence in the banking sector.
The ongoing scarcity of cash should promote cashless transactions but masses are not embracing electronic means citing what one shop owner described as ‘bank stealing from the people.’
Nike, a trader at Ketu, Lagos, said during interaction with IT News Nigeria what banks are doing to ordinary people amounts to outright stealing.
She noted that Bank signed customers to every sort of notification with the aim of extorting money from the masses.
“I receive messages all the times. after the messages come debit alerts. If one customer pays N1000 it would be N700 when you check your balance.” They charge empty account and wait for when you receive money.”
Nike is not along in the cry for unjust deductions from banks. Another trader refused to be mentioned told IT News Nigeria that he refused to allow a customer pay N1200 with POS because he won’t be able to retrieve even N800 from that amount from the bank. ” The use all means to debit our money. no one can speak for us.”
Our Correspondent gathered that Bank do not education customers on the implications of various banking services before enrolling them.
Banks are said to charge for account maintenance and minimum balance verifications. ATM, Overdraft, Insufficient funds, Excess transactions, Wire transfer, and Account closing.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has introduced a new policy on cash-based transactions which stipulates a cash handling charge on daily cash withdrawals that exceed N500,000 for Individuals and N3,000,000 for Corporate bodies. The new policy on cash-based transactions (withdrawals) in banks, aims at reducing (NOT ELIMINATING) the amount of physical cash (coins and notes) circulating in the economy, and encouraging more electronic-based transactions (payments for goods, services, and transfers.
Furthermore, CBN noted that the cash policy also aims to curb some of the negative consequences associated with the high usage of physical cash in the economy, including:
- High cost of cash: There is a high cost of cash along the value chain – from the CBN & the banks, to corporations and traders; everyone bears the high costs associated with volume cash handling.
- High risk of using cash: Cash encourages robberies and other cash-related crimes. It also can lead to financial loss in the case of fire and flooding incidents.
- High subsidy: CBN analysis showed that only 10percent of daily banking transactions are above 150k, but the 10percent account for majority of the high value transactions. This suggests that the entire banking population subsidizes the costs that the tiny minority 10percent incur in terms of high cash usage.
- Informal Economy: High cash usage results in a lot of money outside the formal economy, thus limiting the effectiveness of monetary policy in managing inflation and encouraging economic growth.
- Inefficiency & Corruption: High cash usage enables corruption, leakages and money laundering, amongst other cash-related fraudulent activities.
