CBN Slashes Charges On ATM Withdrawals, Electronic Transfers

Nigeria’s apex bank, The Central Bank of Nigeria on Sunday issued a new Guide to Bank Charges . The new guide which takes effect from January 1, 2020 reduced the withdrawal fee charged for the use of other banks’ Automated Teller Machines from N65 to N35.

The N35 ATM fee according to the CBN would be imposed on customers after the third withdrawal from another bank’s ATM terminal within one month.

The CBN also asked banks to charge a maximum of N1 per mille for customer induced debit transactions to third parties and transfers or lodgements to the customers’ account in other bank on current accounts only.

The Nigeria Instant Payments charges for the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) will attract a charge of N100 per N20, 000 subject to cumulative N60, 000 daily withdrawal .On current account maintenance fee, the guideline states that this would be applicable only to current accounts in respect of customer-induced debit transactions to third parties and debit transfers/lodgements to the customer’s account in another bank.

The Advance Payment Guarantee has been pegged  to a maximum of one per cent of the APG value in the first year and 0.5 per cent for subsequent years on contingent liabilities.

The maintenance fee for cards linked to savings accounts has been reduced to a maximum of N50 per quarter from N50 per month.The CBN also  said there would be no more charges for reactivation or closure of accounts such as savings, current and domiciliary accounts.

Status enquiry at the request of the customer such as confirmation letter, letter of non-indebtedness and reference letter would now attract a fee of N500 per request.