On Wednesday, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced that the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes would be redesigned.
This was revealed by CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele at a special press conference in Abuja. The updated layout and problems will take effect on December 15, 2022.
According to the CBN chief, the step was done to seize control of the cash in circulation.
Nigerians are expected to take their old notes to banks to exchange for the new notes once the new notes are designed.
The governor of the CBN is also concerned about how Nigerian cash is being kept.
He claimed that the CBN would not tolerate the situation continuing in which the majority of the country’s currency notes were kept outside bank vaults.
More specifically, he added, “As of the end of September 2022, data available at the CBN suggests that N2.7 trillion out of the N3.3 trillion in money in circulation was outside the vault of commercial banks across the country and presumably owned by members of the public.”
Evidently, the amount of money in circulation has increased significantly since 2015, going from N1.46 trillion in December of that year to N3.2 trillion in September of next year. I must add that this is a concerning trend that cannot be let to continue.