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Business News of Tuesday, 23 March 2021

Source: www.thetrentonline.com

CBN releases list of 47 approved IMTOs

Godwin Emefiele, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has released the list of 47 International Money Transfer Operators, IMTOs, approved to receive foreign exchange remittances from Diaspora Nigerians.

According to the list posted on the bank’s website on Monday,  March 22, 2021, 17 of the IMTOs were based in the United Kingdom; 14 in Lagos; eight in the United States of America; three in Abuja; two in Senegal, and one each in Ibadan, Morocco, and Belgium.

The CBN recently banned unauthorized international money transfer operators from such transactions, warning that it would apply severe sanctions against them, if they remained adamant.

It also came up with a new policy to force IMTOs and Money Deposit Banks to pay recipients of remittances in foreign currencies, rather than the Naira.

Until then, the IMTOs and banks were said to be shortchanging remittances beneficiaries, as they gave them less Naira equivalent of their foreign exchange sent to them by Nigerians in the diaspora.

List of the Approved International Money Transfer Operators as at February 28, 2021