The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has apologised to Nigerians for the rise in failed electronic banking transactions.

Nigerians have suffered hardships while conducting e-transactions after the CBN implemented the Naira redesign policy.

The CBN boss addressed this at the end of the two-day monetary policy committee meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, March 22.

Emefiele said: “I must apologise. Yes, online channels fail. But no doubt it is as a result of the deluge of online transactions that hit the banking industry. But it is being resolved.

“On a daily basis, our payments system management department monitor the online payment platforms so as to make sure that when there is a downtime, they are quickly resolved so that transactions can go on smoothly.”

He also praised fintechs for facilitating smooth transactions for Nigerians reducing the strain on traditional banks.

On money supply, Emefiele said the implementation of the naira redesign policy has resulted in the reduction in currency outside the banks.

He said: “At the beginning of the naira redesign policy we said that there was about N3.23 trillion in circulation out of which only N500 billion was held in the banking system, while N2.73 trillion was outside the banks.

“It was published yesterday that currency in circulation is close to N1 trillion. CBN will continue to pump the newly redesigned currency into the market.

“The truth is that at some point we will need to reassess to know whether the currency in circulation has attained an optimal level so as to put in place measures to ensure that we don’t go to the level where we were when people kept money outside the banking system for their own benefits.”