Shoprite, Nigeria’s largest retailer, has ceased taking the old Naira currency as payment for transactions amid uncertainties about the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment to set down the deadline for acceptance of the old Naira denomination.
Shoprite Ikeja Mall employees revealed that management has ordered them to cease taking the old notes as of this Friday (February 10, 2023).
Despite the Supreme Court’s decision, it has been learned that major stores in Lagos have begun rejecting the older currencies.
Meanwhile, while shortages of the new banknotes continue, financial institutions may have set their weekly cash supply at N1.5m per branch.
Unnamed bank executives provided Newsfly explanations for the ongoing shortage, saying that inadequate supply from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was to blame.
They claim that before the policy shift that resulted in the redesign of the currency, each branch received between N40 million and N50 million per day, most of which was dispersed through automated teller machines.
On Friday, a senior official from a top-tier bank told pressmen, “We received N1.5 million on Monday evening, which we dispersed on Tuesday morning.” So far, that’s all we’ve heard this week. N2 million was low, but what we received this week was much worse.
Last Friday, the CBN’s deadline for turning in old Naira notes passed without any word from the apex bank regarding the court order that vacated the deadline. As a result, the black market exchange for local currency suffered as more bank branches closed due to a lack of new notes and a fear of disruption from dissatisfied customers.
Customers who deposited old Naira notes into banks in order to fulfill the submission deadline afterward expressed remorse over their decision since they were unable to withdraw both the new and old Naira notes from the banks.
Banks were still collecting the old notes but not handing out the new ones, according to data gathered through visits to financial institutions in Lagos and Abuja, a situation that likely exacerbated the cash shortage in the nation.
As a result, the new cash market has been bolstered, with the new banknotes being traded by Point of Sale (PoS) operators and other companies and people.
Okada drivers, gas stations, and other companies who have been receiving new notes as payment are now selling them for a 10-20% premium.
