The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, will today, Friday, August 5, recommence dollar sales to Bureaux De Change, BDCs, seven months after it stopped the trade. It stopped the sales in January 2015 because of following dollar scarcity and abuse of operating guidelines.
President of the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria, ABCON,Aminu Gwadabe, who spoke to the Nation on Thursday,August 4, said nearly 3,000 BDCs are expected to access dollar from the CBN today.
Gwadabe said the BDCs had on Wednesday, funded their accounts with the CBN in readiness for the transaction, adding that dollar disbursement will start today and continue next week.
He said:“Our members funded their accounts with the CBN on Wednesday and will get the dollar equivalent today. The funds will be sold at the prevailing inter-bank rate.”
The ABCON Boss said the funds would come at one per cent commission, which has been agreed with the regulator. The CBN directed the BDCs to render returns and comply with anti-money laundering regulations.
He promised that the BDCs would abide by the directives and continually provide detailed reports on how previous dollars sourced from the CBN were utilised.
He said the naira exchange rate against the dollar is expected to crash as more BDCs have access to the green back. He said the naira exchanged at N385 to the dollar at the parallel market, adding that it is expected to strengthen in the coming weeks as CBN’s interventions continue to calm the market.
The CBN is targeting huge dollar supplies from the Diaspora estimated at $21 billion yearly, but it is expected to hit $35 billion by the end of this year as more Nigerians living abroad remit more dollars home after the adoption of the flexible foreign exchange policy which removed 16-month peg on the local currency.
Gwadabe said although BDCs were delighted over the resumption of dollar sales to operators, they are also requesting that the CBN opens more windows for them to operate.
