The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has relaxed its cash withdrawal policy on two hundred naira, Five hundred naira and one thousand naira being the highest denomination to be dispensed at the Automated Teller Machines, ATMs.

The apex said it had intensified efforts to ramp up the circulation of the new notes. The bank, also yesterday, reiterated that there would be no extension of the January 31 deadline for the return of old N200, N500, and N1, 000 notes to the banks.

The CBN also said it will be monitoring commercial banks to ensure that they comply with the directive of loading all the redesigned naira notes in their ATMs.

The CBN Director, of Currency Operations, Ahmed Umar, made this known at the training session for state directors of the National Orientation Agency, NOA in Abuja.

“Banks are barred from distributing the new notes over the counter. All new notes must go to the ATMs. The directive to the banks from the central bank is that they must dispense through their ATMs nationwide and people can go to the ATMs to collect the money. They cannot dispense the new notes across the counter for now until they exhaust the new notes. And when that happens they can then upload the old notes. Until they get another supply of new notes.

“That is the only way  to ensure that the new notes are being circulated. Otherwise, what the banks were doing from our intelligence, was that they were holding the cash and giving it to high profile individuals and customers over-the-counter and not circulating it to ordinary customers. So, we decided they must only dispense it through ATM machines for now until it fully circulates in the financial system.”