Banks will accept old naira notes after deadline, says Emefiele

Banks will continue to accept old naira notes after the deadline has passed, according to Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Emefiele stated on Tuesday when he appeared before the house of representatives’ special committee on the redesign of the currency and the naira swap policy.

After the deadline of February 10th, he claimed, the CBN will also accept old naira from banks.

Emefiele referred to the CBN legislation, which requires the top bank to keep taking old notes after they expire.

The CBN governor did not provide a time frame for when banks will stop accepting old notes, though.

Despite subsections (1) and (2) of this section, the CBN act’s section 20 (3) states that the bank has the authority to call in any of its notes or coins upon the president’s direction and after giving reasonable notice in that regard. However, subject to section 22 of the act, any note or coin with respect to which a notice has been given under this subsection ceases to be legal tender upon the expiration of the notice.

Speaking further on the CBN act, he explained that even after the old currency has lost its legal tender status “we (CBN) are mandated to collect these money (old notes) and I stand with the house of representatives on this”.

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“What does that mean? It could (old notes) have lost its legal tender status which means we have moved on. But if you have your money that you have not been able to send to the bank, we will certainly give you the opportunity to bring them back into the CBN to redeem it. Either you pay it to your bank account or you want to do exchange, we will give you. You will not lose your money. This is the assurance I give to Nigerians,” Emefiele said.

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