The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has faulted the new cash withdrawal limits by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The apex bank recently announced a policy of restricting individual cash withdrawals from commercial banks to N20,000 per day, and N100,000 for a week or N500,000 in the case of corporate entities.
But reacting to the development, ACF’s Secretary General, Murtala Aliyu, warned that the insistence by the CBN to implement the “wholly unrealistic policy” will lead to a catastrophic collapse of the informal sector of the economy.
Aliyu, through a statement on Friday, said this is considering the fact that transactions in commodity markets particularly in the rural areas are entirely cash-based
The group also noted that Nigeria has the lowest financial penetration in Africa, whereby over 38 million adults do not have access to banking services with “women, rural dwellers, Micro-Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Northern Nigeria” being among the most disproportionately excluded.
It, however, asked the CBN to allow a level playing field for a wide range of financial providers and encourage partnerships between them.
Furthermore, the ACF asked CBN to enforce strict regulations that protect people’s money, and inform, encourage and prepare the public adequately for the transition.
The group insisted that until the CBN addresses the challenges substantially, a preemptive move or a ”frog-jump” into a cashless payments system, however well-intentioned, will only land the country into a bottomless pit.