Banks declare that as of December 31, they will no longer accept old checks

Clients are aware that as of January 1, 2024, standard checks will no longer be accepted or cleared.Nigerian Deposit Money Banks (DMB) have stated that they will abide by the Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) directive to cease issuing and accepting outdated checks by December 31, 2023.Customers were notified, according to certain messages distributed by the DMBs, that the bank will stop using the outdated standard check in compliance with the CBN directive regarding the withdrawal of obsolete checks for transactions.The statement read, “The cut-off date for the parallel run was March 31, 2021, and from April 1, 2021, only new cheques are admissible in the clearing system. However, it has come to our notice that some Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) are still using old cheques for in-house purposes. in view of this, it has become imperative for the Bank to direct all DMBs to ensure that the use of old cheques for any form of transactions, will cease to be acceptable on or before December 31, 2023, Consequently, any DMBs who use the old cheques for in-house purposes at the expiration of December 31, 2023, or transmit any instrument that is not in conformity with NCS/NICPAS 2.0. would be penalised in accordance with the Sanctions Grid.”