Beware! ATMs Dispense Fake Naira Notes. It was a Monday afternoon, when Omoye, a lecturer with the Lagos State University, Ojoo, had to stop over at the Ojuelegba, Lagos branch of Guaranty Trust Bank Plc to make some withdrawal before she continued with her daily routine. The sheer length of the queue of customers taking their turns to make withdrawal had tempted her to go to the banking hall, but on a second thought, she decided to wait for her turn, after all, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Cashless Policy is seeking to decongest banking halls. It was her turn but to the chagrin of other anxious customers on the queue, Omoye could not leave the ATM on time as she stood there in bewilderment. She had found a fake N1000 tucked among genuine ones she just withdrew from the ATM. Omoye who narrated her experience to THISDAY said, “Who would have thought that banks will be involved in dirty deals of issuing customers with fake naira notes? Yes, I was issued one at the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) of Guaranty Trust Bank branch located at 74/76 Ojuelegba –Yaba road, Ojuelegba, Lagos. “At exactly 12. 23 pm, on July 29, 2013 I used the ATM of GTB to withdraw some amount of money with my bank’s ATM card and immediately went into the banking hall to make deposit into my friend’s GTB account. On getting to the bulk room to make the deposit, behold, the cashier raised an alarm that there was a fake note in the money I brought for deposit. If not for the fact that I stood my ground that the money was withdrawn from the bank’s ATM and with the SMS alert as proof that the money was withdrawn from their ATM, she would have gotten me arrested by the police. “However, a final verification was carried out by one of the staff in the branch to check my ATM card on the computer system and after so much stress and interrogation, the bank replaced the fake naira note with an original one. “My worry now as a customer is how to recognise the fake naira notes from banks ATM and how do millions of other customers detect such fake notes when we have invested so much trust in our banks and we don’t have the patience to crosscheck the money withdrawn from the ATM, when there are so many people on the queue waiting to withdraw as well. Other factors such as time of withdrawal, urgency of need and network fluctuation serve as impediments for customers to be able to detect such fake naira notes from the ATM or do we as customers carry a counting machine around to detect fake naira notes?” What the Bank Say However, Mr. Pascal Or of the Brand Management, Communication and External Affairs of the bank, in a response to THISDAY enquiries, exonerated the bank from blame. Faulting the theory of connivance of bank staff with fake currency syndicate, the bank’s spokesperson said, “We have completed our investigations and are pleased to inform you that there is no evidence of staff connivance to substitute genuine notes with fake ones in our ATM machines.” To buttress his point, he explained further, “Our ATMs are funded with cash received from customers, from other banks and from the CBN. To ensure the genuiness of currencies paid out we have stringent measures in place to spot fake notes.” He disclosed that at the point of receipt, cash deposit by customers are screened under UV light to pick out fake ones; fake notes detected are seized from the customer and immediately perforated and that new employees are mandated to understudy this process for a period of time before assumption of full duty. He added that cash passes through sensors and fake notes are rejected and that cash are processed through UV light before movement to vault. According to him, before loading to ATMs, cash (received in-house and externally sourced) is passed through a cash sorter, noting that the sorters currently in use (Manger 350 & Glory 500) are equipped to throw out suspicious (fake and ATM-unfit) notes. The suspicious notes are further screened under UV light to detect fake notes, which are then destroyed “I can assure you that these processes are being further re-enforced now to guarantee the integrity of notes received by our customers and spot checks at cash handling points by senior officers have been introduced to ensure full procedural compliance. Additionally, we shall continue to strengthen our processes to ensure that the integrity of the notes dispensed from our system are not compromised. “We take all customer suggestions very seriously, and shall continue to take the benefit of constructive suggestions to ensure that our excellent standards are maintained”. In the midst of the damning indictment of banks for the payment of fake naira rotes, the apex bank said it is an operational issue, which is supposed to be handled by money deposit banks.
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 11:49:16 +0000
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