Nigeria to introduce newly-redesigned currency notes

The Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that it is introducing newly-designed N200, N500, and N1,000 currency notes by December 2022. The statement was made by the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele in a special briefing on Wednesday.

According to him, the current Naira notes will no longer serve as legal tender as from the 31st of January 2023.

He explained that the apex bank was motivated by the fact that it needed to intervene in the management of the current series of banknotes and currency in circulation. He cited the fact that statistics showed 80% of the money in circulation was not in the banks.

“As at the end of September 2022, available data at the CBN indicate that N2.73 trillion out of the N3.23 trillion currency in circulation, was outside the vaults of commercial banks across the country; and supposedly held by the public.”

He stated that currency management, in recent times, has faced major challenges that have continued to grow in scale and sophistication with attendant and unintended consequences for the integrity of both the CBN and the country.

He also listed other challenges such as the worsening shortage of clean and fit banknotes and increasing ease and risk of counterfeiting evidenced by several security reports.

“Although global best practice is for central banks to redesign, produce and circulate new local legal tender every 5–8 years, the Naira has not been redesigned in the last 20 years.”

This announcement comes a day after the CBN marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of the eNaira.