A coalition of interest groups has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to explain why it reintroduced charges on the use of Automated Teller Machines (ATM)
The group in a letter dated 12th September, 2014, which was addressed to Central Bank’s Governor , Godwin Emefiele, also gave the apex bank a 7-day ultimatum to reply.
The group, which includes the Public and private Development Centre (PPDC), Enough is Enough Nigeria, and other interested persons, made a 13-point demand to the CBN, asking the apex bank to provide documentation on how it arrived at the directive on the new charges.
“We write to request for documentation that would enable us properly access how this decision to reintroduce charges on ATM withdrawals was arrived at,” a section of the letter reads.
The information the group seeks include: the number and location of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) deployed by individual banks in each state across Nigeria, records showing the daily transaction down time on ATM in each states in the last six months, record of unfulfilled ATM requests by individual banks in Nigeria, and records indicating how much each bank in Nigeria paid to other banks for remote-on-us transactions in the last two years.
Other demands are: the number of complaints about ATM services/transactions disaggregated by bank, the record of stakeholder consultation meetings that led to the reintroduction of the ATM charge for remote-on-us transaction, a list of attendees at the stakeholder meeting, the attendees representing each interest group, certified true copy of the minutes of the stakeholder meetings, certified true copy of resolutions reached at the stakeholders consultations, as well as the certified true copy of minutes of the CBN board at which the decisions to reintroduce ATM charges was finally adopted.
The reintroduction of the ATM charges, which took effect on September 1, 2014, will see ATM card users pay N65 per transaction after the first three transactions of the month.