The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has sold dollars to eligible Bureau De Change (BDC) operators at the rate of N1450 per dollar.
This announcement was made on Thursday in a statement signed by the acting director of the Trade and Exchange Department at the CBN, AA Mahdi. This sale comes just days after the apex bank sold $123 million to authorized dealers, from which the BDC operators were reportedly excluded.
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According to the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), only banks received the forex intervention. The President of ABCON, Aminu Gwadebe, voiced this concern in an interview, stating that BDC operators were left out of the forex allocation.
In its latest move, the CBN stated that it has “approved the sales of FX to eligible Bureau De Change to meet the demand for invisible transactions. The sum of $20,000 is to be sold to each BDC at the rate of N1,450 per dollar (representing the lower band of the trading rate at NAFEM in the previous trading day).”
The CBN’s decision is part of ongoing reforms in the foreign exchange market. The bank noted that it “has observed the continued distortions in the retail end of the market, which is feeding into the Parallel market and further widening the exchange rate premium.”
Furthermore, the CBN issued a warning to BDC operators, emphasizing that they must sell to eligible end-users at a margin not more than 1.5 percent above the purchase rate from the CBN. This directive aims to stabilize the foreign exchange market and ensure that the benefits of the forex interventions are felt by the broader economy.
