A number of Deposit Money Banks in the country have barred their customers from using debit and credit cards to withdraw the development may put business and leisure travellers, who may need hard currencies to meet some obligations abroad, in a difficult situation.

Also, students who are studying abroad and often rely on withdrawing hard currencies with their Nigerian payment cards from Automatic Teller Machines abroad to meet certain needs may find the situation challenging.
However, some banks, which are said to be having high risk appetite and some with partner banks overseas to make settlements easier, are having a smooth ride and as such, have reactivated the ATM withdrawal service overseas.

A top banker close to the development, said, “Each bank has various reasons for not yet activating their overseas ATM cash withdrawal service. For some banks, they ran into losses last year when the naira fell and, as such, they are trying to minimise their risks now.
“For such banks, there is no plan to reactivate it. Some others banks are not ready to reactivate the service because they are trying to check customers who are doing round-tripping. It is for various reasons that the banks are not stopping yet.”

It was gathered that Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank and Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria were among the lenders that had suspended their ATM cash withdrawal services.
Following the crash in global oil prices, the drop in Nigeria’s foreign exchange revenue and the resultant dollar scarcity that hit the economy had made the local banks to suspend the ATM cash withdrawal and the PoS services abroad. They also stopped web transactions.

However, following the improvement in forex supply early this year, some banks announced the resumption of the services.

Some of the banks that have resumed full services in these areas include United Bank for Africa Plc and First Bank of Nigeria Limited. Similarly, Zenith Bank Plc, Ecobank Nigeria and Skye Bank Plc have announced that their customers can do the ATM cash withdrawal, the PoS and web transactions.

Investorsking.com

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