The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has announced a reduction of fees for electronic banking operations in its published guidelines to banks and other financial institutions on Thursday, 27th January 2022.
The Apex bank said the review was in response to “further evolution in the financial industry in the last few years.’’
The Amended guideline, first published in 2004 and revised in 2013, 2017 and 2020, was signed by the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of CBN, Chibuzor Efobi.
The CBN said the guideline applies to charges by Banks Other Financial and Non-Financial under its licence or regulation.
The document revealed that the CBN has reduced the charges on some transactions including Standing Order Charge (In-Branch); ATM Maninance Fees; Electronic Fund Transfers and Bulk Payments among others.
In the latest release, CBN said standing Standing Order Charge for intra-bank will be free compared to the N300 in the 2017 guideline.
For Interbank Transfers, the CBN cut the charges to a maximum of N50 per transaction compared to the N300 held in 2017.
Bills Payment (Including Bills Payment through other E-channels) is Negotiable subject to a maximum of N500 per beneficiary payable by sender, a review from the N1,200 or 0.75 percent for a biller or merchant to pay.
Electronic Funds Transfer has also been reviewed downwards to N10 charge for a transaction below N5000; N26 for transaction of N5001 to N50,000 while transactions above N50,000 will be charged N50.
Withdrawals on other banks’ ATMS have been reduced from N65 to N35 after the third withdrawal within the same month.
The CBN also reduced ATM Bill Payment from N100 to N50. Debit card maintenance charges that were N100/Month have been removed in the new guideline.
The CBN however stated that financial institutions that breach any of the provisions in the new guide would face a fine of N2,000,000 per infraction or as may be determined by the CBN from time to time.
It said, ” Where a bank is found to have wrongfully imposed a particular charge on its customers, the provision of Section (i) above shall apply for the charge on each customer.
“Failure to comply with CBN’s directive in respect of any infraction shall attract a further penalty of N2,000,000 daily until the directive is complied with or as may be determined by the CBN from time to time.
“Banks are required to log every complaint received from their customers into the Consumer Complaints Management System and must generate a unique reference code for each complaint lodged, which must be given to the customer.”
A highlight of some of the major electronic charges include:
*The annual cost for foreign currency (FCY) denominated cards has been cut from $20 to $10.
*ATM fees are decreased from N65 to N35 following the third withdrawal within a month.
*The fee for hardware tokens will be based on cost recovery, with a maximum charge of N2,500, as opposed to the previous maximum charge of N3,500.
*The fee for SMS obligatory alerts will be based on a cost recovery from the previous maximum price of N4.
*Bill payments made through e-channels will incur a maximum fee of N500 based on 0.75 percent of the transaction amount up to a maximum of N1,200.
*A pricing scale for electronic transfers to replace the present N50 flat cost. As a result, transactions below N5,000 would incur a maximum fee of N10; transfers between N5001 and N50,000 will incur a charge of N25; and transfers above N50,000 will incur a charge of N50.
