The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele has slammed commercial banks for not issuing the new naira notes.

Emefiele warned that any commercial bank that failed to issue the new naira notes to customers would be fined N1 million on a daily basis.

The CBN governor, who was represented by the apex bank’s Deputy Director, Adeleke Adelokun, issued the warning at a sensitisation on the new naira notes organised for market women in Ayegbaju International Market, Osogbo, Osun State.

He said that the apex bank had printed enough naira notes to serve Nigerians.

“As of today, CBN has printed enough new naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000.

But, what we discovered was that most of the banks that are supposed to collect the new notes have not collected them. So we have put a sanction on the banks.

“Any bank that fails to collect the new notes from CBN will pay N1 million as sanction per box per day and the amount they are to pay now will depend on the number of days they have not collected the notes,” he said.

In December 2022, the apex bank announced the change of N200, N500, and N1000 denominations and fixed January 31 as the deadline for circulation of the old naira notes.