The Bankers’ Committee has taken the Central Bank of Nigeria’s cash-less policy campaign to Ogun State to enlighten the people on the benefits of the initiative.
The cash-less policy, whose implementation began in Lagos in January, last year, is aimed at reducing the dominance of cash in the system.
The policy was extended to Ogun, Kano, Anambra and Abia states as well as the Federal Capital Territory on July 1, 2013.
The CBN and bank officials have been staging road shows in six delineated zones (Ilaro, Mowe/Ibafo, Ota, Abeokuta, Sagamu and Ijebu-Ode) in Ogun State, to create awareness on how to use different payment channels such as Automated Teller Machines, Point of Sales, and money transfers.
A statement from the Bankers’ Committee on Monday said the programme involved the education of market men, women and owners of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises among others on how to transact business electronically.
The enlightenment programme was for six days.
According to the statement, the daily programme was divided into two segments-the stakeholders’ forum, which involved the various stakeholders and neighbourhood activation in all the six delineated zones.
“It was indeed a very interactive session across boards as bankers were on hand to throw more light on the puzzles in the minds of stakeholders,” it added.
According to the statement, two brand ambassadors –Mama G-Patience Ozokwo and Mr Latin Amusan, thrilled the stakeholders with innovative jokes on the cash-less policy.
The cash-less policy specifies penal charges for individuals and corporate organisations that want to withdraw or lodge cash above prescribed limits. Under the policy, the CBN pegged the daily cumulative cash withdrawal or deposit limit for individual accounts at N500,000 per day and N3m per day for corporate accounts.
Since the introduction of the cash-less policy, banks have been rolling out a number of electronic payment platforms to meet customers’ expectations.
The cash-less policy has been very successful in Lagos considering when it started and how far it has gone in terms of PoS deployment. At the initial stage of cash-less Lagos, there were less than 10,000 PoS in Lagos, but currently, there were over 150,000 PoS machines in the state alone, it added.