POS Operators Take Centre Stage As Cash Scarcity Grips Ikom Banks

By Missang Akpet

The ever-busy commercial town of Ikom in Ikom local government area of Cross River state has been hit with serious cash crunch which has made physical cash a scarce commodity.

This has become a growing concern as residents and business owners scan all nooks and crannies to grapple for every little physical cash available.

With about 8 commercial banks situated in the border town, one would have expected that Ikom residents wouldn’t have had any issue accessing physical cash, especially with the fact that the banks run a good number of ATM points but observably, the reverse is the case as POS operators seem to be in control of the hard currency more than the commercial banks.

A visit to one of the popular commercial banks in the metropolis revealed that there was no cash to disburse over the counter while the ATM machines are never loaded.

Further findings revealed that when there is cash to disburse, only N20,000 is approved to be paid to each customer in most of the banks.

A customer, Sir Ojong Bojor, who spoke to The Beagle News, expressed dissatisfaction with the bank operations, stating that banking your money these days is of no use.

“How can I gracefully bring my money physically to the bank for safe keep and when I need it, I can’t access it? Why can’t physical cash be available? Who is keeping them? If we have run short of physical cash in circulation then why won’t the central bank print more?”

Also speaking, Mr. Henry Agbor, who lamented how he has been patronizing POS agents said the situation is a sad one as he is forced to buy Nigerian Currency in Nigeria like Forex.

“For you to have Nigerian currency in this Ikom you have to buy it from POS operators like you buy dollar from Aboki (Bureau De Change).

“The thing is many of this POS stands you see have connections in the banks where they go to buy money for sales to customers and they bank staff will prefer to sell it to the POS agents where there will make a little profit rather than giving customers their hard-earned money”, he added.

These allegations and speculations of bank employees allocating cash to POS agents seem to be the general view of the citizens as they say they don’t seem to understand why POS agents will have access to regular cash but the banks don’t.

Ikom is not only a border town but also a major commercial city in Cross River State where businesses are being transacted in large quantity on daily basis.

This change in approach has left many locals who relied on bank counters and ATMs for physical cash for their business and transactions to face difficulties in carrying out their daily business transactions.

A bank staff who preferred anonymity when spoken to, refuted the allegation that banks have been allocating cash to POS operators as against paying cash to customers.

According to him, Banking operations in Ikom take a very different system as the banks rely on Major businesses in the city to service customers.

“Most times when we run out of cash, we wait for the big businessmen to come pay in their cash daily into the bank before we can pay to customers. Unfortunately, the POS agents now go to these big businessmen to buy cash directly from them to service their pay points, hence the reason they always have cash.

“This, on the other hand has affected the banking operations as the big businessmen in the city no longer come to the banking hall to deposit their cash” he revealed.

Cash scarcity in Ikom has raised critical questions as many residents and business owners in a bid to save their businesses are contemplating reverting back to the traditional methods of saving monies where they can always access their monies when the need arises.

Banks in Ikom should however focus on enhancing the efficiency and availability of physical cash both at the counters and most especially ATM’s to ensure residents businesses have reliable access to cash, while assisting customers adapt to the changing systems in digital banking.