The amount of cash bank customers withdraw from other banks’ Automated Teller Machines on monthly basis rose from N91bn in January 2013 to N168bn in December 2013, data compiled by the Committee of E-Banking Heads have shown. The figure represented a 172 per cent increase over a period of one year.
The Chairman, CEBIH, Mr. Tunde Kuponiyi, who rolled out the statistics at a press briefing in Lagos on Tuesday, said the number of times bank customers carried out ‘Remote-on-us’ ATM transactions (customers using other banks’ ATMs) in a month rose from 33.4 million in January 2013 to 66.8 million in December 2013. The CEBIH chairman, who is also the Group Head of E-Business, said the rising number of remote-on-us transactions had put substantial cost burden on Deposit Money Banks.
The development, he said, had made the Central Bank of Nigeria, in collaboration with the Bankers’ Committee, to re-introduce ATM fee to bank customers. Kuponiyi argued that rather than promote the CBN’s cashless Nigeria drive, the rising rate of ATM use would promote cash handling instead of other forms of electronic payments that could be carried out on the ATMs.