The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed that inter-bank charges for withdrawing cash from an ATM other than your bank ATM will apply after every third withdrawal from 3rd party bank ATMs.

Banks have responded by programming the ATMs to limit cash withdrawal to N10,000 (ten thousand Naira only) per transaction.  This forces customers to make multiple withdrawals in order to withdraw cash amounts that the ATM is ordinarily able to dispense at once (ATMs can typically dispense up to 40 notes which translates to up to N40,000).

This deliberate tampering with the operations of ATMs is designed to trigger the ATM withdrawal charge sooner and more frequently within the month just so that the bank can collect charges from the customers even when ordinarily, they would not be entitled to the charge if the customer were to be allowed to withdraw above N10,000 in a single dispense.

This act by the banks is an unethical exploitation of a loophole in a CBN directive that was made to help banks recover their inter-bank operational costs while limiting arbitrary charges transferred to the customers.  It should be stopped.

The CBN needs to step in and stop banks from restricting cash withdrawal limits on ATMs and the attendant costs/charges to the customers - they have already placed limits on daily withdrawals, over-the-counter withdrawals, etc.