The ban was announced by the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, during a media briefing held at the apex bank’s headquarters in Abuja...
Emefiele said the 2,786 licensed BDC operators in the country would henceforth have to get foreign exchange from autonomous sources.
He said following the ban on sale of forex to BDCs, the apex bank had decided to remove the restriction placed on cash deposits of foreign exchange in banks.
According to him, BDC operators that are not satisfied with the apex bank decision should return the operational license to the CBN and ask for the refund of their N35m deposit.
The central bank governor said Nigeria was the only country in the world where the CBN provides BDC operators with foreign exchange adding that with the continued depletion of the foreign reserves, such funding was no longer sustainable.
For instance, the governor said that between July 2014 and January this year, the country’ reserves had suffered great pressure from speculative attacks, round tripping and front loading activities by actors in the foreign exchange market.
This, he noted, had led to a decline in the reserves from $37.3bn in June 2014 to N28bn currently.
Emefiele lamented that owing to the speculative attack on the nation’s currency, the central bank’s monthly foreign earnings had fallen from as high as $3.2bn to as low as $1bn monthly.
He said while the CBN would no longer provide the BDCs with foreign exchange for their operations, the apex bank would deploy more resources to monitoring their sources of foreign exchange to ensure that no operator is in violation of the bank’s anti-money laundering laws.
He added that the decision was not a punitive measure, but one meant to ensure that the CBN was better placed to carry out its mandate in an effective and efficient manner, which guarantees preservation of its scarce resources.
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