Godwin Emefiele,CBN Governor
In a bid to curb the rise in currency circulation outside bank vaults, the CBN with approval from President Buhari has announced a redesign of the N200, N500, N1000 currency
effective from Dec 15th 2022.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this during a special press briefing in Abuja, that the action was taken in order to take control of the currency in circulation, according to the CBN boss.
He also said he has secured the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari to roll out new notes to replace the existing currency in circulation.
“In line with this approval, we have finalised arrangements for the new currency to begin circulation from December 15, 2022 after its launch by President Buhari.
“The new and existing currencies shall remain legal tender and circulate together until January 31, 2023 when the existing currencies shall cease to be a legal tender.”
He said CBN plans to mop up N3.23 trillion from outside the banking system back into bank vaults in 100 days.
“As of September 2022, we had N3.23 trillion in circulation out of that N2.73 trillion is outside the vault of the bank, so first of all what we want to do is mop all this 3.23 trillion back into the CBN and take control of money supply and we will begin to see how this will rein in inflation no doubt this will have a positive impact on inflation.
On when it wil commence, he said : “I will say today is 26th, so, we have about six to seven days to the end of October till January 31, 2023, which is almost about 100 days to mop up the old currency out of circulation back to the vault”.
He however directed all Deposit Money Banks (DMB) holding the existing denominations of the currency to “begin returning these notes back to the CBN effective immediately”.
The new currency, according to him “will be released to the banks in the order of First-come-First-serve basis”.
He further urged Nigerians to proceed to their banks to deposit their Naira notes, adding that the deposit fee would be waived for transactions below N150,000.
The CBN said that it is worrisome that 85 per cent of the currency in circulation is being hoarded by Nigerians.
Emefiele added that the redesigning of Naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes, as well as hamper ramson payment to terrorists and kidnappers.
