Mr Godwin Emefiele, Managing Director, Zenith Bank Plc, says banks will work with the CBN on its cashless policy to reduce the volume of cash flow in the country.
Emefiele said this on Tuesday while briefing newsmen at the end of the Bankers Committee meeting in Abuja.
“The CBN released a circular alerting members of the public that come 2012 that the maximum amount for withdrawal will be N150, 000.
“We deliberated on that subject because we feel that it is not just enough to put a policy in place but to ensure that we put in place proper process that will make it work.
“Part of the decision that was taken at the meeting today is that we will start an implementation process with Lagos State under what we call `Operation Cashless Lagos’ in December 2011,’’ he said.
Emefiele said that the process would entail aggressive deployment of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Point of Sales (POS) terminals at various banks locations as well as on and off site locations for the banks.
He said that POS terminals would be procured and installed by the banks in shopping malls, airports and corporate organisations.
Emefiele said that the process had worked in many parts of the world including Africa, adding that Nigeria with its population would not be left out.
“In Africa, countries like Kenya, Kampala, transactions are carried out primarily with cards and we think that Nigeria should not be an exception.
“We think that Nigeria is a very good market with the population of about 150 million people, we should allow transactions to be carried out using cards and this will reduce the way we carry cash around,’’ he said.
Emefiele said that by December 2011, about 40,000 ATMs would be deployed in different parts of Lagos and by June 2012, it will double the number.
“The assurance that I want to give to Nigerians is that we will do this with every sense of responsibility and we will make sure that customers carry out their banking transactions without problem.
“It will be a very seamless process and everybody will be happy with it,’’ he said.
He said that various criteria would be set to make sure that the ATMs were procured at cheap rates by banks.
On infrastructure to stabilise the process, he said that banks would engage the telecom operators to provide adequate bandwidth through which data could be processed and transactions would be made easy.
He said that a committee had been set up to work out the modalities for an effective implementation of the cashless policy. (News Agency of Nigeria)
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