Market women open up on cashless policy

One year after the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the cashless
policy in Lagos, it has decided to extend the policy to otherstates,
including Abuja, Abia, Anambra, Ogun, Kano and Rivers. It is against
this background that Saturday Vanguard sampled the opinions of some
Lagosians and these are their reactions.
Frozen foodseller—Mrs Oluwakemi Kushimo
The policy has a lot of benefits for the people and the economy, and I
think it should be embraced without fear.
With the policy, it is mandatory for banks to confirm cheques of over
N500, 000 to protect the interest of the person that issued the
cheque. So for me, the policy is really helping us marketers because
if you want to buy goods worth N1million you don't needto go with
cash. All you need is an e-Transfer. But the challenge is poor
network. Sometimes you will have to stay in the bank forhours . But
aside from that, the cashless policy is okay because even the company
we buy goods from doesn't collect cash.
Wholesale cloth seller —Mrs Kudirat Yusuf
To me, naturally, it's very risky to move around with huge amounts of
money because doing that means risking my life.
So the cashless policy is a good idea from the government becausemany
people have been robbed as a result of moving around with huge sums of
money to buy goods. It is helping us too. We now send money to the
account of the company we buy clothes from and once they get the
alert, the next thing they do is bring our goods to us. So the idea is
okay and I will advise my co-marketers to buy into the idea too.
Tomato seller —Mrs Fatima Oribamishe
It's not that easy, but we are managing because sometimes these Hausa
people don't really like the idea of someone paying into the bank for
them .So what we do is we look for the literate ones among them who
have bank accounts, then we transfer from our account to theirs before
they agree to sell to us.
So the cashless policy is good because we are no longer scared of
travelling to the North to buy goods with cash, unlike before when we
used to go with cash and sometimes some of us would get robbed on the
way. But thank God for the new idea from government. At least our mind
is now settled anytime we are going to buy goods.
Car dealer—Mr Olabisi Taiwo
We have been coping well, but the orientation has been very poorand we
don't know what to do about it. Imagine if a customer wants to buy a
car and our company requires a customer payingin cash. The customer
pays for more than three hours yet no alert to show for it. And
probably the customer has been waiting, yet you cannot allow them take
your goods worth millions if you don't get the alert. The policy is
okay but the orientation is poor.
But, basically, I would say I am not enjoying the policy because if
after the buyer pays for more than three hours you don't get proof, of
course you know it is very risky to let your goods go . So it will be
painful if the buyer goes away with the car and you don't get money.
So we are just trying to save ourselves from fraud by telling the
buyer to give you time to confirm before taking the car away.
Car dealer —Mr Robert Nwaogu
Well… it has not been easy because we can no longer deal with cash. We
now have to wait to get alerts before we can give our cars to buyers.
But that doesn't mean we don't deal with cash because somebodyfrom
Abuja, Enugu or Aba would like to come with his money and we accept
it. And at the same time we still accept online transfers, but the
disadvantage is that it takes time before we get alerts and even
sometimes people don't pay at all. Some even pay us with bounced
cheques.
But generally the cashless policy is good because some of our
colleagues have died as a result of armed robbery's snatching their
money so it's good.