New charges have been introduced yesterday as banks rev up the pressure on cash transactions as fees are set at 2% for transaction between 500 000 to a million naira and a huge 7.5% for transactions more than 5 million Naira. As revealed by the Apex bank these fees will initially be rolled out to cashless areas such as Lagos, Anambra, kano and a handful of others, before being in effect in Kaduna, Delta Imo, Gombe, Enugu.
The new charges are hoped to be rolled out to the majority of states by 1 October including Kogi , Yobe, Sokoto ,Ekiti. Please check with your local banks for more information on when and how the charges will be implemented in your area.
The cashless society has long been a vision for the future of finances as cash and physical assets are slowly phased out by the likes of Bitcoin and cashless platforms seeking to ease transfer of funds and making them much faster too. Nigeria became one of the first countries to actively seek a cashless society via the legislation enforced in 2012 which added fees on cash transactions to promote use of point of sale systems and digital methods.
To conclude, these new charges have come as news to many who weren’t warned previously about the new charges. While cashless societies will be the norm, Bitcoin has been discussed particularly due to the benefit it will proved many that are not looking to transition to POS systems when conducting business. Currently the policy is seeing much success with majority of spenders conforming however the fees have been deemed crippling by many larger business who effectively have to pay salaries in cash and will see a much tighter management of finances to deal with the new charges.
