CBN says old N200, N500 and N1000 notes no longer legal tender

Andaza said the CBN had received a deluge of questions from Nigerians about its operational guidelines on the old currency notes.

“There are so many questions here and there which people have been asking about. So, for the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that CBN is ready and is open to receive all of those old notes based on certain conditions and criteria.

“Customers are free to come to the Bank and deposit which they cannot do at the Commercial Banks anymore because the currency has seized to be a legal tender since from the 10th of this month.

“Consequently, the management of the CBN decided that those customers will have a sigh of relief by coming to the offices of the CBN in all the 36 states in the Federation including FCT to deposit their money”, Andaza said.

He said customers have to go to the CBN portal and fill a form in the portal concerning this currency redesign and exchange.

“After filling the form, you generate a code. You either print it or come with it in your mobile phone, give us the code and the information contained therein. In the form, you are expected to provide all the basic information about yourself, your account details, the amount you want to deposit.

“By the time you have done it correctly, you come to the CBN where the code will be accepted from you as well as the money, process and confirm the genuineness or otherwise of the money to avoid receiving fake notes because there are some fake notes in circulation now”, the Bauchi CBN controller said.

He warned Nigerians against submitting fake Naira notes as anyone who does so would be arrested.

“If anyone wants to try us by bringing in fake notes, he should be ready to be arrested. So, don’t go and print old fake naira notes and bring to the CBN. Whatever happens to you, don’t blame us, you caused it.”

He said the CBN will receive the notes from customers and conduct  internal checks before handing out an acknowledgement, which is an evidence to show that it had collected the money from the customers. It will then go ahead with its internal processes. After finishing with the internal processes, the accounts of the customers with the commercial banks would be credited with the amount exchanged.

Andaza said all the commercial banks are expected to bring all old notes deposited to the CBN. He said some of the banks have started depositing with it because they want to close their books and that once that is done, they will stop collecting from customers.

He said it was for this reason the CBN decided to open the portal for the public especially the vulnerable still having problems of cash used for trading.

“The CBN is trying to minimize risk involved in losing that money. We are trying to minimize hardship also. We know that people are having some hardship. People are suffering. We not unmindful of that fact. That is why the management of the CBN has magnanimously decided to open that portal to assist those who were unable to deposit the money into their bank accounts. That is our process flow in a nutshell.

“The portal will be there, opened for sometime, depending on the circumstances and the directives from the management. We expect that within this period, people should have been able to deposit all they have. It is a privilege given to Nigerians to ensure that they deposited those money even though they are no longer legal tender.

“For the people in the remote areas, if you can recollect, we have gone round virtually all the villages in Bauchi State with some commercial banks asking the people to open accounts which many of them did and were able to deposit their money, I doubt if there are still people who have not keyed into the system now who are still having old money”, Andaza stated.