Cash-less Lagos: Group takes awareness to communities

To ensure cashless Lagos is embraced by every Lagosian, a group under the aegis of Association for the Promotion of E-payment Options (APEO), has embarked on massive awareness campaign to various communities and interest groups in the state.Addressing newsmen in Lagos on Tuesday, the group's coordinator, Amadi Ibekwe, said the campaign was essentially to highlight the benefits of the cashless policy as introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently, stating that if the project succeeded in Lagos, it will easily be embraced in other parts of the country.He disclosed that part of the awareness plan was to visit and educate the traders in clusters, distribution of leaflets and organising talks on the benefits inherent in the scheme.'The success of this policy in Lagos is very strategic. This is because Lagos is the commercial nerve centre of the country. We volunteered to do our own bit by ensuring the policy works and we are optimistic that it will,' he said. The cash-less policy, an initiative of the Bankers Committee, was introduced by CBN to migrate from cash-based economy to electronic payment economy.It chose Lagos for the pilot project effective January 1, 2012 and would extend to other major cities by June this year.Under the policy, the apex bank said only Cash In Transit (CIT) licensed companies are allowed to provide cash pick-up services. Banks will cease cash in transit lodgment services rendered to merchant-customers in Lagos from December 31 2011, stating that any bank that continued to offer cash in transit lodgment services to merchants would be sanctioned accordingly.The apex bank pegged withdrawals and lodgments by individual and corporate organisation at N500, 000 and N3 million respectively.Processing fee for lodgments and withdrawals above the limit for individual customers is two percent, while that of corporate bodies is three per cent. However, ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, specialised banks ' microfinanace banks and primary mortgage banks, diplomatic missions, embassies, multilateral and aid donor agencies have been exempted from penalties and charges.The service charges/fees took effect since March 30, this year to give people time to migrate to electronic channels and experience the infrastructure that had been put in place.CBN added that 'banks should continue to encourage their customers to migrate to available electronic channels, and where possible demonstrate the costs that will accrue to those that continue to transact high volumes of cash after March 31st in Lagos.
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