The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said the redesigned national currency is expected to strengthen the economy, reduce the expenditure on cash management.
The recent statement issued by the CBN tagged ” Naira Redesign: What You Need to Know” said the exercise will as well promote financial inclusion and enhance the apex bank visibility of the money supply.
CBN while urging the citizens to ensure they deposit all their N200, N500 and N1000 notes in their possession in the bank before the deadline January 31, 2023, maintained that there would be no extension of the deadline after the expiration of the date.
The bank pointed out that the decision to redesign three denominations of the naira was not targeted at any group or person, but noted that the global standard period of redesigning a country currency is five to eight years, meaning that the naira is long overdue for redesigning.
The statement said having a considerable amount of money currently outside the bank’s back into the financial system may help to ease inflationary pressure, deepen financial inclusion and enhance cashless policy.
The apex regulators further dismissed any plan of issuing N2000 and N5000 bank notes, noting that there would be no outright exchange of new bank notes to old N200, N500 and N1000 banknotes.
The statement however encouraged bank customers to explore other payment channels such as e-Naira, POS, Electronic Transfer, USSD, internet Banking, and Mobile money operators and Agents for their economics activities.
