 Now, the central bank of Nigeria, CBN Governor Gatwin Emefili says the Apex Bank would concede a tweak in the new weekly cash withdrawal limits of 100,000 and 500,000 for individuals and corporate bank customers. Now, Emefili, who addressed late House correspondents after meeting behind closed doors for the president, Mohamed Buhari, in the Arrakat Senate State, are sure that the Apex Bank would not be rigid on the policy as it was not meant to hurt anybody but to strengthen the nation's economy. He also hinted that over one trillion now was of old notes had been deposited by bank customers, explaining that the CBN has distributed the new 200,000,000,000 and 1,000,000 notes to banks for disbursement to their customers ahead of the December 15th Alla Shattered for circulation of the new notes. Now, we will be looking at all the angles to the new policy of cash withdrawal limits as they affect Nigerians and the digital economy. Welcome to Business Insights and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. Now, first off, the House of Representatives has criticized the new policy introduced by the CBN, which among others set limits to cash withdrawals at the deposit money banks and other financial institutions. By the plenary, a lawmaker, a Leo Margagy, who moved a motion of urgent public importance warns that the new policy would spell doom for the economy, as several people would lose their jobs, while traders, artisans, and rural dwellers would suffer because of the cash limits. We'll also take the CBN's governor's reaction to the policy. The Central Bank of Nigeria will generally have a negative impact on the already dwindling economy, and further weaken the value of Nigerians and Nigerians may resort to using dollars and other currencies as means of trading, and thus further devalue the narrow and weakest economy. The House resolved, one, to invite the CBN governor to come and brief the House on all this policy he has been bringing out in the last one month. Two, to add the Central Bank to receive this decision, the set policy because of his disadvantage, as earlier said. Three, to add Central Bank of Nigeria to do more advocacy, enlightenment, and centralization before this policy is rolled out. Three, four, to add Central Bank of Nigeria to give not less than one year notices in any case of any plan issue of such similar notices that may touch directly on Nigeria to the small business owners in Nigeria. Thousands of Nigerians now have come to live and do businesses through the POS, is going completely with the introduction of this. And I can't understand how Nigerians will be able to manage our businesses that is dominantly in cash. Truly speaking, we should search our books and impose necessary legislative to ensure that we are residing. If we have no powers, we can look at the powers of the CBN itself and see how we can do the best the excess powers we have. We should do cashless and I support it. My mother was affected in 93, four-year-old woman was kidnapped and I know your mother very well. I'm shocked to hear that. I'm sorry to hear that. I'm so sorry to hear that. So I support it wholeheartedly. Okay. That we should go cashless. Okay. Thank you for the reference to the statutory provisions section eight, sub four and sub five of the CBN Act. I guess that works in tandem with the resolution anyway and I guess if the resolution carries a day, we'll also be referencing those statutory provisions when the clock writes for the formal reputation to the CBN government. The new currency has now reached the banks and that we expect that the banks will begin to distribute those currencies to the members of the public who are their customers and they're going to assure the president that things are going on well about the currency as well as issues approaching on the cashless policy. The Senate of the Federal Republic is National Assembly. The legislative of the government and from time to time we brief them about what is happening about our policies and I'm aware that they have asked for some briefings and we will brief them. But I think it's important for me to say that the cashless policies started in 2012. Okay. But at almost three to four patients, we've had to step down the policy because we thought that there is a need for us to prepare ourselves and deepen our payment system infrastructure in Nigeria. Between 2012 and now 2022, almost or about 10 years, we believe that a lot of electronic channels have been put in place that will beat people in making banking, conducting banking and financial services transactions in Nigeria. And we will be reviewing from time to time how this is working because I cannot see that we are going to be rigid. But it is not to say that we will reverse. It is not to say that we will change timing. But whether it is about taking some amount to be a little bit higher or a little bit lower and all the rest of it, we will do so because we are humans want to make sure that we make life good for our people. We do not want to make life difficult for them. And that was the governor of the central bank of Nigeria, Gatwin Amy Fili, after meeting behind closed doors with the president in Dara. And he was actually confronted by state has corresponded and he was defending the new cash withdrawal limits. Moving on, the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, AMBEN, has kicked against the CBN's cash dispensing policy saying it will not fly and protested that it will dampen business for mobile banking agents. Joining us right now is the National Public Relations Officer of the Association, Oluwa Shegu. A little bit, thanks for joining us, Shegu, on Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. Thank you, Justin, for inviting me. It is indeed a pleasure. I'm sure you have been following the discussion so far. You had from the National Assembly and of course you had from the main man himself as it were, the governor of the CBN. Let's just get to initial reactions. Yeah, thank you. The reactions that have trailed the new cashier's policy is expected because some of the details inherent in that policy were not easily available to us. It came as a shock because we believe many stakeholders were not consorted, were not part of this. And I mean, we believe if something of this that is very germane to our sector is to come up, all stakeholders have to have inputs and also see how this can give us all a soft landing. As it is, you will see if you have read through the documents, you will see that there is recognition for POS and the only area where we have issues there are no provisions as to how the POS agents are going to have access to cash more than $20,000 in error because we all use the same accounts and we will be seen as customers. So for me as an agent in my outlets, how do I service customers beyond the $20,000 cash that is available to me on a daily basis? That is where we think the CBN has not taken enough arrangement provision. They have not provided areas in so if we have this dialogue, we have this engagement, it will be easier for us to point it out to them that OK, there has to be a categorization of accounts of agents beyond the individual and the corporate entities that have been highlighted in the documents. All right, Shagu, when I listened to the central bank governor, he was trying to take us back in retrospect that the cashless policy has actually been in place since 2012, that's about 10 years and he feels by now I know all the channels to transact this particular policy would have actually depended in 10 years, but if I have to play devil's advocate as it were, are you saying the CBN has actually had that Nigerians are actually not prepared for this in 10 years? It has been a long journey and it's not a dash. It's not a hundred meter dash. It's a marathon and so many things have to be in place. Yes, we have come in long way and as it is now, you cannot say we have everything in place for us to go full-fledged cashless in this economy. No, you also bear witness that for every period in the month, the last days of the month and the early parts of the new month, you experience a lot of itchies, ditchies in transacting. That is because the infrastructures are mostly overwhelmed towards the end of the month and the beginning of the month. And there are some areas in this country where you can say you can get quality internet connectivity or even services are really not strong in those areas. So what do you expect those people in those areas? How do you expect them to to live? How do you expect them to conduct their financial services in those areas? So what we are saying is, of course, in cashless policy is the end point for financial inclusion. We need to ensure that a whole lot of our people are financially included in the financial spectrum of the country before we can say we want to go cashless. For now, yes, we can see gains here and there, but we are not there yet. Infrastructure needs to be in place. A whole lot of things have to be more empowered. Bear in mind that banks cannot be in all the seven or so, the four local governments in this country, banks cannot be in all the seven or so. It is not profitable for them. So agents are the ones that are really going around to. All right, let me but I know over time. I'm bad, you know, has been having interactions with the Central Bank of Nigeria concerning its financial, inclusion, policy and digital economy. Over time, are you saying that this issue has never been brought up specifically? I think that question I said over time. I'm bad. Your organization has been having, you know, meetings and of course and dialogues with the CB and over it cashless policy and all of that. But are you trying to say right now that these particular policy has never actually been brought up? This new policy, as far as we are concerned, came as a shock to us. Like every other Nigerian story, that's the way we also saw it. This is coming on the case of the first ever International Financial Equations Conference that was held in Abuja two weeks ago in Abuja. This was not even a part of what was discussed. It was not discussed as a matter of fact. A new policy document was launched at that conference for us to go on a 85 percent financial inclusion drive by 2025. So if this just came up after that conference with all stakeholders, nobody saw this coming. None of the licensed operators saw this coming. It came as a surprise to us. So it means there's a communication gap. And then that is where we feel we should do more. We should engage ourselves more. The stakeholders have to be in the spectrum of things they need to understand. We all need to come together and see how this will not unnecessarily give Nigerians stress in excessive financial services. All right, because there was an interaction with your national president, Victor Olojo, and he says that this particular policy will actually put a lot of people out of business. Let me try and understand in the root terms right now. Amban specifically is like the association on Brella body, which houses all of these operators. In real terms, just how many operators, if you can just state specifically, let's just get some statistics will be affected by this policy. By by some statistic data, we have over one point four million mobile money agents in the country today. This is an area that has provided job for over one point four million in this country. What it means is that if we do not tweak the city does not tweak this policy, these people will be out of job and we want to want to consider what Nigerians are we facing in the beginning of this year and then add that to the loss of job and what their families will face. Some some persons will lose their job who were employed by a purest agent to man one or two athletes for them. So this to us is not going to help our economy in any way. This to us, if the CBR recognizes that we exist as the policy suggests that we exist, then there has to be a way that will be catered for. There has to be a way that we will get cash for ATM. It is self driven. Banks will look at them and move away for purest. You need somebody behind the purest to operate it and to exchange cash with customer. And you cannot run that effectively for 24 hours in a day with 20,000 era. Access 20,000 era cash. So it is very important that we look at this from that angle that for Niger to be effective, you need to have access to more than 20,000 era. For example, you look at the average withdrawal amount at an agent location. And if an agent is to service between 20 and 50 customers in a day using 20,000 era as a benchmark, that means an agent averaging would need between 500 and 1 million era to be effective in this workplace. But the agent itself may not be able to accept the agent is a corporate entity as it were or not be able to even withdraw such high amount to service. Even as an entity as a corporate body, the audience says you can have access to more than 20,000 in a week. True. So you can't even have access to 20,000 in a day. OK, but what sort of soft landing can be done right now? The policy should take effect from next year. There is a bit of some time before it takes effect in as much as a send it has some on the CBN come to use the next week. But what sort of soft landing is unbanned expecting really? I listen to the CBN governor and I believe is open to this document revised, not reversed because of course, yes, the cashless ones have been pushed over time. Our time and time again, and this is the time to start. But it has to be on emphasis. And in this regard, we are saying agents. The account agents, registered agent accounts should have exceptions when it comes to access to cash. We use the same deposit money banks that every other person use to access our cash. And there has to be a way that agents account will be exerted from the restriction to 20,000 era assets to cash. We should have at least by calculation I did the other time. An average agent. Serves between 20 and 50 customers daily using 20,000 as a benchmark. We will need at least between 500 and one million era assets on daily basis to be able to serve effectively. Otherwise, the ATM points will be jumped back again. The banking house will be so full that the bus will not be able to control and serve. And then we don't want a station where the country will be in such a disarray that people don't have assets to cash. And if people do not have access to cash, this has to be noted. The infrastructure that we have, there are times that you get to a first station after you bought your fare, you want to use your card and they say there's no network. And then what you do the next time, I mean, the next moment is you bring out cash to sort that situation and move ahead. But if you do not have access to more than 20,000 era and you have spent 15 out of 20,000 that you have in a day, the many that cannot sort the wealth that you have bought. All right. Thank you, Shago. Where are we going? Where are we going? So it has to be faced. It has to be looked at again. All right. Deeper consultations have to be made. All right. Thank you, Shago. That's as much as we can take from this conversation. We must say a very big thank you to you for all of the impute and the insights that you have brought to this conversation. I will follow that story as it is a developing one. The central bank governor is expected to meet with the National Assembly members next week and will bring details to our viewers and let them know how things go. Once again, thank you, Shago. He is the National Public Relations Office and Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents of Nigeria. I'm Ben. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. All right. And that's the size of the show for this week. But we'll leave you with details of how Nigerians are reacting about this policy. I am Justin Akadoni. I'll see you again next time. Bye for now. The currency policy by CBN is something I find quite funny. The very first time I saw that thing, I was like, these people are trying to manipulate and they're trying to manipulate and they take how we live our life. So it's not a very good idea. Okay, what if I have a business? I want to make a transaction in a business that will earn me more profits. And at that very moment, I need something, I need a capital more than the desire, this whatever policy that I've made. So it's not a very good idea. Where do you want me to get the other fund to actualize my profits? It can happen because, as you mean someone goes to the hospital and has a bill of $40,000, $35,000 to pay, it can happen, there is no way this can happen. How can we draw $30,000 in a day and pay the bill? How, when you have a maximum of $20,000 to withdraw, someone has a surgery that has to take a surgery and has to pay $1.5 million and has to pay for that $1.5 million, has to deposit maybe $500 or a million on the spot. How can it do it? They should review the policy. You mean we can only withdraw $20,000 per day? Okay, what about people that are doing that in the markets? You want to go and buy stuff now? Okay, you want to buy stuff for your baby? Let me say for example now, someone that just deliver, about to deliver. Definitely you want to withdraw more on ATM. She now said that the response she gave me is that they would not do transfer. So I was not like, okay, so who will now sit down inside the market and be expecting transfer to come in? I don't know that sometimes network is not always okay. So meaning that, I want to buy stuff for $20,000 and I have to transfer to how many people am I going to do that to? If I have 500,000 men, I can't do anything. I want them to do a job and I need to transfer some money to my colleagues. Maybe they just want to follow me to work. Like yesterday, I did some transaction, $250,000 and this morning, another $150,000 transaction. I need them to have $20,000 in me. No, it's not me since.