By Harry Awurumibe, Head, Abuja Bureau
The recent directives by Nigeria’s apex bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that customers will no longer pay the N50 bank charges on any financial transactions at the points of purchase may have fallen on deaf ears as the public are still being charged at the Point Of Service (POS).
Aside from the banks which are still debiting all sorts of charges from their customers, operators of POS are deducting as much as N50 for every transaction plus their “service charge”.
Prompt News investigations revealed that POS vendors charge customers from N100 to N500 naira for withdrawing amounts ranging from N5, 000 to N100, 000.
Also, fuel stations charge customers amounts ranging from N50 to N100 for any POS transaction before they can dispense petroleum products to motorists.
These charges are different from the normal N50 bank charges which have been in existence for some time now.
On its own, the banks debit from customers such charges like account maintenance charges, stamp duty charges, and other sundry charges.
All attempts to persuade the POS vendors and fuel pump attendants to observe the CBN directives have not been successful.
According to Mr. Johnson Dike, a resident of Kabusa area of the FCT, Abuja his old generation bank is always deducting
multi charges from his accounts every month including stamp duty and maintenance charges.
Meanwhile, efforts to reach the authorities at the CBN in Abuja to explain why the excessive bank charges on customers have persisted have not been successful.
