By Dickson Pat
As the ongoing cash crunch continues to bite harder, Nigerians have condemned the poor network that makes online banking difficult and the exorbitant charges they have to pay to get cash from Point of Sale, PoS, operators.
The cross-section of Nigerians who spoke to our reporter, said the naira redesign policy the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was implemented at a wrong time without measures in place to control network problems and exorbitant PoS charges.
A buyer in the market lamenting the difficult situation said: “I approached a PoS agent to withdraw N10, 000 and was charged N1, 000 making a total of N11, 000. I am a working class person but I find it difficult to cope with the hardship.”
According to a seller, “we are facing a lot of challenges from this cashless policy, customers will come to the market to buy provisions and other items but payment always become a problem.” A customer will make a transfer but you can’t see the alert,” she said.
Another customer said: “The rate of withdrawal from the PoS is so exorbitant, and it is killing our businesses, even when we accept transfers, we don’t get the alert. All this becomes more hectic with network issues in the Bank. Like today I went to the Bank to withdraw N25, 000 but I couldn’t make the transaction because of the network, someone charged me N3, 500 to withdraw N25, 000.”
Also another customer said: “I went to PoS to make a transaction of N5000, the PoS man charged me N1,000, even after accepting the charge, I could not get the money because of poor network.” The CBN has decided to obey the Supreme Court ruling on the use of old notes till December 31.
Banks across the country will now resume accepting and issuing the old naira notes and this is expected to improve cash liquidity across the country.