The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in furtherance of its mandate to develop electronic payments systems in Nigeria, on Wednesday, 1st day of August, 2018, released the 2018 revised Nigeria Bankers’ Clearing System (NBCS) rules with effective date from September 1, 2018.
This was however, communicated to all deposit money banks, micro-finance banks, mobile money operators and payments service providers, via a circular dated 31st day of July, 2018 and signed by Dipo Fatokun (Director, Banking and Payments System Department, CBN).
The vocal point of the NBCS rules is to afford financial institutions, guidelines to achieving an efficient operation of Automated Clearing System, speedy and efficient collection of cheques, ACH instrument, bills and other payment instruments payable inter alia, within the Nigerian banking sector.
Interestingly, the rules prescribes the duration of holding financial instruments. This can be seen in article 5 of the Rules wherein it states that “paper-based payment instruments deposited by the customer at any member bank shall be deemed paid by 10:00pm of the next working day (T+1) except where it is returned by the paying bank and/or a special caution or an extension of value date request has been received from the paying bank………….”
