CBN to monitor banks’ foreign exchange sale

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has assured the public that it will monitor commercial banks to ensure they meet the legitimate Foreign Exchange (FX) customers’ demands.

This is coming after the apex’s directive to Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to sell foreign exchange to customers, for invisibles such as Basic Travelling Allowance (BTA), medical and tuition, etc.

The CBN also dismissed speculations that it planned to convert the foreign exchange into domiciliary accounts of customers into naira.

Speaking with business correspondents in Abuja yesterday, CBN’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi, said: “The CBN had put in place a monitoring mechanism to guarantee the seamless sale of foreign exchange to customers who supported their requests with relevant documentation.”

He said the CBN had also extracted the commitment of the banks, through their Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), that customers with legitimate requests will not be turned back.

Meanwhile, Nwanisobi dismissed insinuations in some quarters that the CBN planned to convert the foreign exchange in the domiciliary accounts of customers into Naira in order to check the purported shortage of availability of the United States dollars.

Nwanisobi said CBN never planned to tamper with the foreign exchange deposits in the accounts of customers”.

He insisted that “those making such allegations were criminal speculators whose intention was to create panic in the foreign exchange market”.  According to him, “at no time did the CBN ever suggest or imply that it would tinker with the foreign exchange deposits of customers”. 

He, therefore, urged “operators of domiciliary accounts and other members of the public to go about their legitimate foreign exchange transactions and disregard fictitious stories aimed at pitching them against the CBN and triggering chaos in the system”.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele at his post-Monetary Policy meeting (MPC) briefing last Tuesday, said the apex bank would stop the weekly sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux de Change (BDCs) and that deposit money banks would henceforth sell to customers to meet their foreign exchange needs.

Bank’s CEOs met at the weekend and affirmed their readiness to meet the foreign exchange demands from genuine FX end-users as directed by the CBN.