The United Bank for Africa (UBA) has announced that their branches will now open on Saturdays for deposit.

In an email to its customers on Friday, the bank said “following the CBN announcement on the introduction of new naira notes, we are now open on Saturdays, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm for cash deposits only.”

Earlier in the week, the apex bank announced its decision to change naira notes, urging Nigerians to deposit their old notes into banks before January 31, 2023.

Central Bank governor Godwin Emefiele said the development was informed by the fact that more than 80 per cent of the Nigerian currency are outside bank vaults, arguing that such practice portends dangers for the economy.

Some experts have however raised doubts about the success of the scheme.

Kingsley Moghalu, a former Central Bank deputy governor, said though he supports CBN’s latest move to redesign some naira notes, he doubts if it will help curb inflation and food price inflation.

“I fully support the Central Bank’s redesign of the Naira,” Mr Moghalu said in a series of tweets on Friday. “I doubt it will solve inflation because there also are other major reasons for inflation such as the forex crisis, which this new move could exacerbate, as well the impact of the security crisis on food price inflation.

He added that “the flip side is that people who are holding huge amounts of cash outside the banking system for nefarious reasons will go to the parallel forex market to buy hard currency, putting further downward pressure on the value of the Naira as too much Naira will be chasing too few dollars.”