Banks slash current account charge to N3 …plan to reduce other charges

The Bankers Committee has said Deposit Money Banks in the country have agreed to reduce all bank charges in order to enhance financial inclusion. As a first step, the committee has already endorsed the downward review of the Commission on Turnover charged current account holders from N5 on every N1,000 withdrawn to N3.

The approval of the reduction was announced after the committee’s meeting, which was held at the headquarters of the Central Bank of Nigeria yesterday in Abuja. The meeting, which lasted for about five hours, was attended by the CBN Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi; top executives of Deposit Money Banks as well as other senior officials of the CBN.

The Director, Banking Supervision, CBN, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, addressed journalists on the outcome of the meeting. She was accompanied by the Managing Directors, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede; Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Godwin Emefiele; Stanbic IBTC, Mr. Yinka Sanni; and Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr. Ugochukwu Okoroafor.

On the customer biometric project, Emefiele said the committee had fixed a take-off date of July for its commencement. He said, “We discussed the customer identity management project at this meeting. We set up a committee last year comprising nine financial institutions on how to boost consumer credit to Nigerians.

“We do not have a databank where we can access the information of bank customers and we say setting up this committee will help build a database through a biometric project.”

According to him, the project will enable all bank customers to have a unique biometric identification number that will allow all the banks to see the information of the customer regardless of whether he has an account with them or not.

“Once you have that unique number and you go to bank ‘B’ from ‘A’ to open an account, once you just show that number, an account will automatically be opened for you,” Emefiele said. He said owing to the unique number, it would be easy for banks to do businesses with their customers.

Via Punch