The Central Bank of Nigeria has facilitated the recovery of N89.2b for 23,526 bank customers as of June 2021 following their complaints over illegal charges and withdrawals.
This was disclosed on Thursday by the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele, represented by the Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Mr Osita Nwanisobi.
He spoke at the CBN Fair in Calabar on the theme: ‘Promoting financial stability and economic development’.
Nwanisobi said, “The money was based on the complaints individuals raised. Often times, there have been issues on charges.
“What we do is that when we get these complaints, we investigate and if the issues are found to be true, the banks make refund.”
He advised bank customers to report back to CBN if commercial banks could not resolve their issues.
Nwanisobi said, “The CBN Fair is to create awareness on our policy and interventions, programmes. We also use this opportunity to build confidence in our financial system and to disabuse the minds of our people against the rumours of distress in the system. There is no distress at all. Our financial system is sound, resilient. It is safe and it is stable.”
He added, “We have 37 interventions in CBN. These interventions are targeted, like the targeted credit facility, health sector intervention, commercial agric credit scheme, real sector support facility, electricity market stabilisation fund, etc.
“The issue is about the functionality and why the intervention comes to be.
“During the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, we realised that the global economy was shut down; families and businesses were affected.
“The first thing the CBN did was to roll out some interventions to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on livelihood and businesses. That was how the targeted credit facility came on board.
“It was basically a health crisis and we needed to up our game in terms of health infrastructures. Interventions, as I earlier said, are targeted based on identified gaps to help rejig the economy.”
He said the CBN was investing heavily in agriculture because it was the way to go.
