Follow @9jaLife The banking industry may yet again send scores of its workers to the job market this year following rising cost of running their business, analysts have said. The rising overhead cost is mostly a fallout of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directives to deposit money banks (DMBs) to reduce charges on turnover (COT) from N5 per N1,000 to N3 and the removal of the N100 charged by banks for withdrawal of money through automated teller machines (ATMs). Part of the fallout is that most banks now keep one ATM operational at a time in a bid to save cost. Most banks that have three or more ATMs have one or more out of operations as the weight of servicing becomes heavier with the removal of N100 charges. LEADERSHIP investigations revealed that the banks are not happy about the development, but have little choice over the decisions of the regulatory body. The banks are particularly sore that the decision of not charging fees for usage of their ATMs negates the very principle of banking. According to them, put plainly, banks are usually in the business of buying and selling money. The area of disagreement is that a customer of bank A uses the ATM of bank A to collect money from a bank B's ATM for free. The issue, according to them, is that though the banking halls are actually being decongested, money they got from depositors at a cost is being collected by customers of other banks at no cost at all. The problem, analysts said, is two-pronged. The first one, according to them, is that as banks deploy more ATM machines and bank customers gleefully use ATM more because it is at no cost, and frees the banking halls, as such, bank cashiers have their jobs hanging in the balance, unless they are deployed to other areas where they will be more productive. Banks' staff's fate remains hanging delicately when the other problem is looked at. This is because by the time banks spend more money deploying ATMs, servicing them, providing power 24 hours a week to keep them running, the cost will be unbearable, and as such the staff will [...]
