Does CBN need money?

I had some internet training with one of my friends yesterday evening. In fact, the training was supposed to have commenced yesterday morning but it commenced in the evening because my friend came in late. When he came, he narrated his ordeal to us. He had gone that morning to a bank in Ikorodu (GTB) to withdraw money and having completed that transaction successfully had moved to another bank immediately (UBA) in Ikorodu as well to pay in the money.

On getting to UBA, he filled in the deposit slip and joined the queue. After several minutes of waiting, eventually, it was his turn to pay in his cash in. The cashier collected the stash of cash from him, looked through it and concluded that there where “mutilated” notes in the stash. She therefore returned the money to him and insisted that he changed the “mutilated” notes otherwise, she wouldn’t accept his deposit. What did she mean by “mutilated” notes by the way – Naira notes that were torn, ragged or defaced.

My friend argued that the bank was supposed to collect such notes and return them to CBN – Central Bank of Nigeria for recycling and that if banks who were the public’s last resort to exchange “mutilated” notes for whole notes where refusing to do so, what other options did people have apart from losing their money outrightly. She informed him that when they took such notes to the CBN, the CBN charged them for it by reducing some bla bla bla – technical stuff he didn’t understand and so returning the notes to CBN wouldn’t fly by her.

My friend tried to let her know that he just collected the money from a bank and brought it straight down to theirs. If a bank could issue him such notes, certainly, another bank should be willing to receive them. The cashier at this point was losing patience with him and told him point blank “Oga, it’s either you change those notes, or you find some other branch of our bank to pay it in. I will not collect them from you.” she told him in so many words. Beaten, my friend had to take his “mutilated” notes back to the bank from which he collected them. He narrated his ordeal at the receiving bank to the cashier who paid him earlier and demanded that the notes be changed. The notes were eventually changed and he had to head back to UBA tail between his legs to deposit whole notes in the bank. The whole process lasted several hours and caused our training schedule to be moved by the same time. It didn’t help that he had to begin to find his way down to Allen avenue, Ikeja all the way from Ikorodu. Took him a while to arrive.

Anyway, we eventually had the training and I started making and losing money immediately (LOL), but I couldn’t help but wonder, if CBN isn’t collecting mutilated notes without a charge, are they saying that they need money? After all, they must have anticipated this mutilation of naira notes and made provision for it’s return and recycling. Are they trying to tell the banks, “see, we gave you brand new notes, we will receive no less from you.” What roles exactly are the CBN supposed to assume in situations like this? Should people begin to reduce their dignity to fisticuffs over mutilated notes? Because that’s what I see happening very soon, especially when it becomes popular knowledge that banks are refusing those notes on the excuse that the CBN is charging them for deposits which such notes. If the CBN needs money, can they not make requisition for it? Must they tax banks because of mutilated notes that are not the responsibility or the consequence of the banks operations?

Can we please have a sensitive, human faced money and bank regulator in this country? Soludo please take note. – (not a mutilated one anyway LOL)

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