As the yuletide approaches, banks within Anambra State have started hoarding cash, refusing to give out to customers who throng the banking hall daily.
This has further accentuated the brisk business being made by POS operators, who now get cash from banks and sell to customers with commission.
Checks by DAILY POST in most banks in Awka showed that banks deny cash to customers, claiming there is no cash available.
When our correspondent visited a new generation bank in Awka, a bank staff at the counter told a customer that he cannot be paid anything more than N100,000, insisting there was no cash.
A female customer in the same bank, whose name was not immediately ascertained, lamented that it is almost as if banks no longer give out cash to customers.
She said: “They just refused to give that N100,000. In my own case, I want to collect just N20,000, but they are directing me to go and use the ATM, whereas they know that their ATM is not stocked with cash.
“I don’t want to go to POS to pay as much as N600, just to collect N20,000.
“I know that what they are invariably telling me is to go to the POS to collect the cash. This is bad, people have been bringing bulk cash here for deposit, but the bank is not giving out cash. That is not fair.”
Meanwhile, Comrade Jude Udegbe, Chairman of the Anambra State Motorcycle Transport Welfare Association lamented that real banking transactions have shifted to Point of Sale (POS) operators in Nnewi.
He said: “Currently, it’s challenging to withdraw up to N100,000 at once from any bank.
“The banks have started hoarding available cash, as they did last year. Meanwhile, POS operators are maximizing profits at their customers’ expense.
“The government must intervene. This situation is worsening the difficulties for people already traumatized by economic challenges,” Udegbe stated.
A source told DAILY POST that most bank executives work hand in hand with POS operators, giving them bulk cash for an agreed commission.
The source added that some POS businesses in town were owned by either banks who give out the POS machines, or staff members who initiated the acquisition of the machines.
The source, who is a trader in Eke Awka market, Mr Jerome Obaji said: “Some of these big POS operators here in Eke Awka work with top bank staff.
“How do they get cash? There is a man who does POS business at the gate, any amount of money you want, he will give it to you.
“How does he get cash everyday, whereas if you go to the bank for any amount of money, they will tell you they don’t have it?”
Meanwhile, the POS business seems to be a good way of taking unemployed young people off the streets as it has become a thriving business.
In Awka, there are over 100 young girls into POS business at the popular Aroma junction only.
Comrade Joe Ifedigbo, a businessman in the area said: “I think it is a convenient place to get cash, without the stress of going to the bank to queue up.
“It is also providing employment for our young people. All these girls doing the business are people who would have been unemployed, and causing nuisance in the town.”
A POS operator, who refused to disclose her name, told DAILY POST that: “The profit you make per day depends on the amount of cash you are able to secure for the day.
“Sometimes I make up to N5,000 daily when I get enough cash to give out.
“If you are lucky to get people who are doing bulk transfers from their accounts to other people’s accounts, you can also make money through the commission, even when you don’t have cash,” she said.
(Daily Post)