There are strong indications that the huge crowd of customers at banks and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) may begin to ease off from today as more commercial banks expect fresh cash supplies from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

It Is also assumed that respite would come from reduced pressure on DMBs as huge demand for cash by politicians to prosecute various elections would reduce.

Bank sources said the reintroduced old naira notes will be released by the apex in addition to the new notes in higher volume to clear the queues in banks.

For now, the CBN pegged daily cash payout across the counter at N20,000 per customer.

“We will definitely have more money to disburse from this week since the CBN has approved the resurrection of the old naira notes.

“Last week was hectic but I’m optimistic things will get better from this week. More branches will have cash to pay out”, a source from a second generation bank confided in Daily Sun.

Sources at other commercial banks said the bulk of the cash mopped up from customers in the wake of the naira redesign policy, has been returned to the CBN, in order to beat the February 10 sunset date for the old notes.

“The truth of the matter is that we can’t have the volume of cash we had before the cashless policy took off. We can’t pay more than N20,000 per customer per day as instructed by the CBN. The old and new notes have to be rationed at this time and I believe things will get better from next week”, another source said.

However, a visit to many ATM machines of various showed that they out of cash.

As a way of braving the odds, customers, especially Point of Sales operators, lay siege to banks as early as 4am to pick numbers and return later to queue for cash.

With alternative electronic banking channels suffering frequent downtimes, banks are now under intense pressure to meet the cash demand of their customers. (Daily Sun)