- Sad reminder of the ‘tally number’ banking era
For Nigerians familiar with long queues in the banking halls of yore, the ubiquitous queues at the Automated Teller Machines’ cash points would conjure a familiar memory – a throwback to the period of ‘tally-number’; of customers frantically seeking to withdraw cash in what was oftentimes, a less-than-seamless process of across-the-counter transactions in the atmosphere of bedlam.
Now, three decades after the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was introduced into the Nigerian financial market to relieve the bank customer of that burden of frustration, the queues have staged a comeback – from the banking halls to cash-dispensing tills.
The story across the federation is virtually the same: where the machines – which are supposed to dispense cash to the customers whenever they need them – have not only broken down, they are more often than not, out of cash. Many of course are known to have been abandoned by their owners for reasons that are hard to fathom – leaving the few that manage to work with long queues.
It is worse at weekends and public holidays – during which time bank doors are not open for business. Whether in the cities or far flung rural areas where a few of the machines are to be found, the story of frustrations is the same. During last week’s Eid-el-Kabir celebrations for instance, there were reports of customers spending 50 minutes or more on the queue before making withdrawals; the less lucky ones reportedly left the cash tills frustrated when the cash ran out, just as there were countless others whose accounts were wrongly debited even when no cash was dispensed.
Just as obtains all over the world, the ATMs have since become vital elements in citizens’ transaction culture. Indeed, right from when the first set of the machines were installed by National Cash Registers (NCR) for the defunct Societe Generale Bank in 1987, its acceptance by the banking public – whether in the rural or the urban centres – has been phenomenal mostly for the reasons that their presence relieves citizens of the burden of carrying cash around while also ensuring that daily cash emergencies are met with ease and at minimum inconvenience.
Proof of this is the surge in the value of ATM withdrawals. From N3.97 trillion in 2015 for instance, it surged to N4.7 trillion in 2016 – a jump of 22.5 percent. Clearly, if that trend is any confirmation of how much the services have enjoyed wide acceptance as well as the potential for growth in the foreseeable future, the least we expect is that the banks will seek to match their pace with the demand at any given time. Part of this is that the machines would be in their utmost serviceable conditions at all times and be well stocked with cash.
That this is not currently the case should worry the Bankers Committee as a body; indeed, that the ATMs are fast turning into white elephants at a time of growing demand should stoke serious concerns. Moreover, that Nigerians are denied access to what is ordinarily a basic service by their financial services providers through willful negligence reflects, both on the individual bank’s poor culture of maintenance, and cash management.
The banks should therefore consider the removal and replacement of the non-functional machines as priority. This is even more so that these are value added services for which the bank customer is charged a fee. We do also think that there should be better mechanisms to ensure that the ATMs are constantly maintained. Considering that the existing ATMs are not enough, the banks, through their forum – the Bankers Committee – should consider ways of fast-tracking the deployment of more machines to bridge the gaps.
