CBN slashes electronic transfer, ATM withdrawal charges (see breakdown)

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released its downward review of charges placed on Nigerians for the maintenance of Automated Teller Machines (ATM) cards and the fees for electronic financial transactions.

According to the changes made by the CBN, bank customers will henceforth pay N10 for each electronic transfer below N5,000, and N25 for electronic transfer between N5,000 and N50,000.

The new rule, which takes effect from Wednesday, January 1, states that electronic transfer above N50,000 will be at the cost of N50, Vanguard reports.

The review of the fees is contained in the apex bank's lastest guide to charges which also reduced the charges for withdrawals through other bank's ATMs from N65 to “maximum of N35 after the third withdrawal within the same month."

Added to this, CBN has removed the Card Maintenance Fee (CAMF) on all cards linked to current accounts, with a maximum of N1 per mille for customer induced debit transactions to third parties and transfers to the customers’ account in another bank on current accounts.

In his explanation, Isaac Okorafor, the CBN's director of corporate communication, said that the current NIP charges apply to use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), purchase with cash-back will cost N100 per N20,000 withdrawal that eventaully amounts to N60,000 in one day.

Okorafor also made it clear that for cards linked to savings account, a maintenance fee has been reduced from N600 per annum to N200.

Even more, he said that charges for reactivation or closure of accounts like savings, current and domiciliary have been removed while status enquiry at the request of the customer (like confirmation letter, letter of non-indebtedness and reference letter) will now attract a fee of N500 for each request.

One of the CBN's new rules lso states that there will be a penalty of N20, 000 for any bank that places arbitrary charges on customers and that the penalty will continue daily unto the said financial institution adheres to the regulation.

In relation to this, the CBN directed banks to enter complaints from customers into the Consumer Complaints Management System (CCMS) and generate a unique reference code for each complaint, adding that failure to do this will attrack a fine of N1,000,000.

The apex bank made this known in a circular to all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the country on Tuesday, September 17. It said that the implementation of the policy would signal the imposition of charges on deposits in addition to already existing charges on withdrawals.