Ololade Adeyanju/
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced the reduction of the withdrawal fee charged for the use of other banks’ Automated Teller Machines (ATM) from N65 to N35.
The Apex bank also said the N35 ATM fee should be imposed on customers after the third withdrawal within one month as is currently the practice.
It also removed Card Maintenance Fee on all cards linked to current accounts, and also asked banks to charge a maximum of N1 per mille for customer induced debit transactions to third parties and transfers or lodgments to the customers’ account in other bank on current accounts only.
The directives form part of the new “Guide to Charges by Banks, Other Financial and Non-Bank Financial Institutions” released by the CBN today.
The new guidelines takes effect from January 1, 2020.
The guidelines also pegged the Advance Payment Guarantee to a maximum of one per cent of the APG value in the first year and 0.5 per cent for subsequent years on contingent liabilities.
See copy of circular by CBN:
The apex bank also announced various sanctions for banks that fail to comply with all the provisions of the new guidelines.
The sanctions read:
i. Financial Institutions are to note that any breach of the provisions of this Guide carries a penalty of N 2,000,000 per infraction or as may be determined by the CBN from time to time.
ii. Where a bank is found to have wrongfully imposed a particular charge on its customers, the provision of Section (i) above shall apply for the charge on each customer.
iii. Failure to comply with CBN’s directive in respect of any infraction shall attract a further penalty of N2,000,000 daily until the directive is complied with or as may be determined by the CBN from time to time.
iv. Banks are required to log every complaint received from their customers into the Consumer Complaints Management System (CCMS) and must generate a unique reference code for each complaint lodged, which must be given to the customer. Failure to log and provide the code to the customer amounts to a breach and is sanctionable with a penalty of N1,000,000 per breach.
v. A penalty of N100,000 shall be imposed on a financial institution that contravenes the provisions of Part 6C.
See link to guidelines: