Customers reject deposit requirements as more banks dispense obsolete notes.

Extra Deposit Funds Almost three days after a few banks started doing so, banks have started giving old N1,000 and N500 notes to their customers.

On Thursday, Polaris Bank and First Bank have begun giving their customers outdated N1,000 and N500 notes.

This occurred three days after Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, and Sterling Bank began giving their customers the old N1,000 and N500 notes.

The announcement that some Deposit Money Banks in Abuja that previously issued the old naira notes would no longer accept them stunned many clients on Thursday.

Before allowing their consumers to deposit the old notes in the DMBs, many banks placed requirements on them that had to be met.

Customers expressed confusion over this as well as complaints about how shops, gas stations, transporters, and other companies in the capital city were refusing to accept the outdated notes.

Clients who lined up in front of numerous banks in Abuja at various places created long lines and expressed amazement that the banks were still accepting old notes while also giving out new ones.

An Access Bank customer in Kubwa, Abuja, who went by the name Opeyemi said, “They are asking us to go and generate online codes from the Central Bank of Nigeria before we can deposit the same old notes that they gave to us.

More than five more clients at the bank verified this, which caused others who wanted to withdraw money to leave the building despite waiting in line for hours.

On Wednesday, long lines could also be spotted outside First Bank, GTB, Polaris Bank, UBA, FCMB, Fidelity Bank, EcoBank, etc. in Kubwa, Gwarimpa, and Abuja’s Central Business District.

Clients of several of these institutions acknowledged that the DMBs were dispensing old naira notes, but they were rejecting them because they stipulated requirements for their acceptance.

“The current situation involving the old naira notes is extremely confusing. According to Mohammed Shuaibu, secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abuja-Suleja, our banks have not given us permission to collect it and they do not take it.

Furthermore, according to Shuaibu, oil merchants are aware of the requirements that banks place before accepting old currency into their vaults.

He had earlier stressed that the President has not spoken on the use of the old naira notes and that oil traders were waiting for the presidential directive.

“But, of course, we will accept the notes if the banks say we should collect the old notes. We haven’t received any formal confirmation as of yet, though. Only people are saying it to us.

“I can assure you that we will easily comply once the banks urge our members to accept it. The old N500 and N1,000 notes have reportedly begun to be distributed by banks, but I haven’t personally seen any of them. We can only hear it, said Shuaibu.

The banks have yet to start paying customers with the outdated N500 and N1,000 notes, according to our correspondent, who visited United Bank for Africa, Polaris Bank, and Wema Bank branches on Wednesday in the Lugbe neighborhood of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja.

It was noticed that customers at the UBA bank were not being paid with either the new or the old notes since there was no cash on hand.

Customers were similarly not paid at the Wema Bank and Polaris Bank branches because the institutions were out of cash.

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According to a News Agency of Nigeria report, Ifeanyi Udenna, a client who picked up the old N1,000 notes from First Bank, claimed he accepted the old notes because they were issued to him by a commercial bank.

“I think the information will be accurate because the funding is coming from a commercial bank.

The banks cannot be functioning independently, he added, even if we haven’t heard anything from the Central Bank of Nigeria regarding the old notes.

Eugenia Atah, a different consumer, claimed that despite getting the old notes from her bank, traders were refusing to accept them.

“I retrieved N20,000 worth of the old N1,000 notes from my bank, but when I got to the market, they wouldn’t take it.

“I also went to a restaurant for lunch, but the manager turned me away.

I had hoped that the release of the old notes would ease our pain, so this is disheartening, she remarked.

Our correspondents were informed by a bank employee at Stanbic in Ikeja, Lagos, that no older naira notes were available for distribution.