…As bank customers in Jos win SUV, cash prizes

By Marie-Therese Nanlong

Jos – A financial expert, Adebayo Adeyeye, has urged Nigerians to embrace the cashless society and insisted that any society that will advance must go cashless because less cash in society will promote accountability and discourage criminality and corruption.

Adeyeye, who is the Regional Manager of Access Bank in Plateau State, covering the nine branches in Jos and a branch in Kafanchan (Kaduna State), said these in Jos, Plateau State, during the Bank’s Diamond Extra season 16 launch where customers were rewarded with categories of gifts and cash prizes.

He highlighted the value his bank is adding to the people at the grassroots, especially the women and girls, building their capacity, and empowering them for educational and economic impacts.

Speaking at the event held at the Club Road branch, Jos which saw Yinnang Wushipba from Plateau State, winning an SUV, and other customers winning monies ranging from N200,000, N100,000, N50,000, N20,000 to N5,000, he said, “This has been going on over the year, and people have been winning various prizes. In Jos alone, we have had three on-site draws; at the Katako branch, we had to do twice in one day; even though we planned for one when we saw the turnout of the people, we had two draws for them.

“Today, we are not just having a draw, we are presenting one of the biggest prizes available under season 16, which is a brand new SUV, to a customer who won it through a raffle. This is to show the people what they can get when they bank with Access Bank and save in the diamond extra. Anybody can have a diamond extra account: a trader, a civil servant, or those in self-employment. Your money is earning interest for you, and then we reward our customers through various types of reward…”

On the cashless policy, he added, “A good society that would advance must go cashless. It is stressful that there is scarcity, but it is the right way to go. We give cash back as we receive from customers and as we receive from the Central Bank of Nigeria, but I know that the right thing to do is to do away with cash. The less cash that we have, the less criminality in society, and the less kidnapping that is happening in society. The less cash that we have available, the less corruption that we have in our society.

“We know that as a developing country, we cannot completely do without cash. So as a bank, we try as much as possible to see that our ATMs have cash for people to get rations, N40,000 per day. If you can get N40,000 in a day from our ATMs, I think it’s fair enough. So that’s what we’re trying to do to ensure that our ATMs are loaded with cash, to see that people are less pressured. But the people also need to understand the cashless societies. We cannot continue to keep cash as we are doing.”

However, the customers present at the event were sensitized on fraud prevention as the Team Lead, Consumer Liabilities of the bank, Olanrenwaju Adetula answered questions the customers raised and also disclosed that in the last seasons, the bank has spent over N6bn in rewarding its customers.