The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that total direct remittances hit $6.5 billion in four months ended April 31, 2019.
In prior four months of 2018, international payment data from the apex bank revealed that an accumulative $2.42 billion was reported as total direct remittances into the country.
The data from the apex bank revealed that February of this year has the highest total direct remittances while March has the lowest.
The breakdown by Nigerian NewsDirect revealed that total direct remittance into the country in January was $1.89 billion while in February, it moved to $1.92 billion.
In addition, total direct remittance in March was $1.12 billion and in April, it closed at $1.56 billion.
Further findings by Nigerian NewsDirect revealed that total direct remittance according to CBN in 2018 was $11.23 billion
As at February 2019, the CBN had licensed 58 International Money Transfer Operators (IMTO) and monitors legitimate foreign currency, most especially Dollar inflow into the country.
Also, commercial banks and oil companies also remit foreign currency to the CBN.
Among operators licensed by CBN were MoneyGram, Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Fluterwave technology Solutions limited, PagaTech Limited, Western Union, Swift Payment and TCF Limited.
Others are Small World Financial Services Group, Weblink International limited Cashpot limited, DT&T Corporation Limited and Corporation limited and Fiem Group LLC, and DBA Ping Express, CP Express limited.
The CBN had mandated financial service providers to be duly licensed in order to protect customers and the financial system; that international money transfer operators are required to remit foreign currency to their agent banks in Nigeria for disbursement in Naira to beneficiaries.
The CBN said that interested applicants should forward their request for licensing under the CBN 2014 Guidelines on International Money Transfer Services in Nigeria.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) had estimated that a total of $25.08 billion was remitted by Nigerians in diaspora into the country last year.
This represents about 14per cent increase from 2017 and 83per cent of the federal government’s 2018 budget in value.
This is almost $3 billion higher than the World Bank’s previous estimate which, at $22 billion, placed Nigeria with the highest remittance in-flow in Africa and fifth-highest globally, behind the likes of India, China, Philippines and Mexico in that order.
Majority of the remittance into Nigeria is coming in from the United States, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, China among others. But according to online remittance service, Azimo the region that made the highest remittance to Nigeria in 2017 was Europe with $8.1 billion, higher than other top senders like the United States, other African countries and Arab states.
Remittance inflow has been on a steady increase for the last six years except in 2016 when it dropped by approximately seven per cent.
As of 2017, there were 17 million Nigerians in diaspora according to the federal government. No doubt, this figure has grown over the years and will continue to grow which implies that the value of remittance inflow into Nigeria would continue to rise.
On the contrary, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been on a steady decline for two years in a row. In 2016, FDI rose by 45per cent before the recurrent drop in 2017 and 2018 with 21.3per cent and 31.2per cent decrease respectively.
Evidently, the value of remittance inflow into the country is in multiples of FDI. The risk to foreign investments according to PwC include the declining interest rate, political instability, unfavourable investment climate as well as broad macroeconomic instability.
Source: Nigerian NewsDirect
