Bank customers in lafia, the Nasarawa state capital and environs have continued to groan over refusal of banks to comply to directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to commence payment of N20,000 over the counter.
A visit by Radio Nigeria to some banks within lafia on Wednesday witnessed most of the customers coming out from the hall with long faces, grumbling over little amount of cash they were able to withdraw at the counter.
Mr Sunday Ogah and Danjuma Isa who had waited on queue for about four hours said they were able to withraw only three thousand naira from the bank.
Mrs Margaret Audu and Esther Paul said the highest amount the banks allow customers to withdraw is ten thousand naira at ATM and over the counter.
Similarly, findings by Radio Nigeria revealed that POS agents within lafia allow withdrawal of only Two thousand naira at a time with two hundred naira as charges.
Meanwhile, the POS operators stationed outside various banks by the CBN last week to ease difficulties experienced at ATM points by customers were no where to be found this week.
Their absence have led to the return of congestion and long queues at ATM points across banks with people waiting on queue long hours to late at night .
However, some banks had to suspend operation of their Automated Teller Machines due to the heavy crowd and congestion witnessed at the galleries, with excuses that the machines have been over stretched or there was network problem.
At the time of filling this report, ATM’s of banks such as First bank, Access ,Stanbic, Uion, UBA, Heritage and Unity banks were not functioning.
Reporting by Yusuf Usman; Reporting by Abdullahi Lamino