The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has lifted the Foreign Exchange, Forex, ban it placed on nine commercial banks for contravening directive on remittances to the Treasury Single Account, TSA.
The apex bank, had last week banned the nine deposit money banks, DMBs, from the foreign exchange market for concealing over $2 billion belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG.
However, the Director Banking Supervision, Tokunbo Martins, who addressed the newsmen on Wednesday, August 31, said after series of discussions with the CEOs of the banks and following various investigations, the CBN decided to lift the ban.
Martins said already, the banks had submitted the schedule of payment of the retained revenue to the TSA which the CBN accepted.
The nine affected banks are United Bank for Africa (UBA) -$530m; First Bank of Nigeria (FBN)- $469m; Diamond Bank Plc-$287m; Sterling Bank Plc-$269m; Skye Bank Plc -$221m; Fidelity Bank -$209m; Keystone Bank- $139; First City Monument Bank (FCMB) -$125m; and Heritage Bank-$85m.
