CBN Recants, Says No Plans for Coins ATMs

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) last night said it has no plans at least for now to introduce the now controversial coin-dispensing machines saying that as a regulator, it can only help create the environment for operators to introduce the machines.

Ugochukwu A. Okoroafor, director, Corporate Communications Department, Central Bank of Nigeria in an email however said that coins dispensing ATMs is a that it was a “question of technology and that it was possible to have such machines in place”

Okoroafor was reacting to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek’s story on Monday “Nigeria Coins ATM is World’s First” an investigative piece which reported that Nigeria will make history as the first country in the world with cash machines that dispense coins.

The report gathered that there is no known place in the world where there is currently a coins dispensing ATM.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations followed report credited to Chidi Umeano, head of shared services at CBN which said that the apex bank was tinkering with the introduction ATMs that can dispense coins in its efforts to encourage Nigerians to imbibe the culture of spending coins.

The report quoted Umeano as saying that “to achieve this plan, what is needed is to facilitate the inclusion of a process called ‘add-on’ to the ATMs. The existing ATMs have the ‘add-on’ feature that will easily make them adapt to coins dispensing”

But some experts said otherwise.

James Agada, managing director, ExpertEdge Software one of the vendors of ATM in the country explained that the regular ATM that dispenses note cannot be upgraded to dispense coins because the mechanical component of the coin ATM is different as it is designed to dispense coins only.

Nodding in agreement, Mr. Peter Iwegbu, managing director, PN Consulting, an electronic banking consultant said that what is needed is to facilitate the inclusion of a process called ‘add-on’ to the ATMs.

“Good enough, the existing ATMs have the add-on feature that will easily make them adapt to coins dispensing.” Iwegbu added.

The apex bank however said in an email that its official was misquoted.

The email read “Dear Messrs Nigeria CommunicationsWeek,

We refer to your story on CBN’s proposed introduction of coin-dispensing ATMs, which obviously led to your own story. I wish to authoritatively inform you that our Head of Shared Services was wrongly quoted in the report. There is no intention, for now, of the CBN embarking on such a scheme.

I sought his clarification on it and he said the question to which he was reacting and which inadvertently led to the misunderstanding and erroneous report now gaining ground, was as to whether the ATMs of the future in Nigeria were going to have capacity to dispense coins. He then made comments to the effect that it was a question of technology and that it was possible to have such machines in place.

The context in which this comment was made has since then been enlarged by the journalist and subsequent quotes, to claim that we (CBN), were about introducing coin-dispensing machines.

As a regulator, we can only help create the environment for operators to introduce coin-dispensing machines.

Kind regards
Ugochukwu A. Okoroafor
Director, Corporate Communications Department,
Central Bank of Nigeria.


Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that a previous attempt to introduce new coins to the economy in 2007 failed because most people refused to use them.

According to the CBN, coins were more economical because they last longer than paper or polymer notes

Under the “Project Cure”, CBN planned to change all notes from N20, and lower into coins, a move aimed at encouraging Nigerians to imbibe the culture of spending coins.