Nigerians have condemned the reintroduction of transaction fee on withdrawal from Automated Teller Machine (ATMs) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) . Instead, the people urged the CBN to assist Nigerian banks boost their revenue base through other sources. CBN had, Wednesday, announced the reversal of its earlier decision taken in December 2012 to suspend payment of N100 per month charge on ATM withdrawal by asking customer to pay N65 per transaction. David Akwu, an economist, said the new policy has sent signals that the new CBN governor will reverse majority of the former CBN governor’s policies aimed at protecting consumers. He said the reintroduction of the charges was unnecessary and only added to the sundry charges Nigeria banks used to place on customers.
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According to him, rather than aid banks get cheap funds from consumers, the CBN should challenge the banks to increase their revenues. However, a staff of one of the deposit money banks who did not want his name in print said the cost of maintaining the ATMs was high for the banks to bear.
He said the three withdrawal window was healthy enough as small withdrawals can still be done absolutely free irrespective of the issuer.
A cross section of bank customers around Ikeja, Lagos, who spoke to our correspondent, said the CBN was only restricting them to using ATMs belonging to their banks.
“Just last month or so, the CBN said if your card got stuck in an ATM other than the issuer, the card is perforated before handing it over to you. You will need to get a new card for N1000 from your bank. Just this week, the CBN said if I use an ATM belonging to another issuer, after the third usage in a day, I will pay N65 for each additional withdrawal.
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