FOREX: Banks ’ll Comply Fully – CBN Assures Customers

• Says no cause for alarm over dom account deposits

BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA – The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has assured the banking public of effective monitoring of all commercial banks to ensure compliance in meeting the legitimate Forex demands of customers.

The apex bank gave the assurance following Monday’s flag-off of its new policy directing Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to avail their customers with foreign exchange for invisibles such as Basic Travel Allowance (BTA), medicals and tuition among others.

Similarly, the CBN also dismissed speculations on alleged plans to convert into Naira the foreign exchange in domiciliary accounts of customers.

CBN’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi, said in Abuja that the apex bank has already evolved effective monitoring mechanism to guarantee seamless sale of foreign exchange to all customers who support their requests with relevant transaction documents.

Nwanisobi said CBN has also extracted commitment from the banks, through their Chief Executive Officers, that customers with legitimate requests will be adequately serviced.

The CBN Spokesman further debunked insinuations in some quarters that the apex bank is planning to convert the foreign exchange in the domiciliary accounts of customers into Naira as part of measures to check purported shortage of the United States dollars in the market.

He assured that CBN has no plans to tamper with the foreign exchange deposits in the accounts of customers, insisting that those making such allegations were criminal speculators whose intention was to create panic in the foreign exchange market.

According to Nwanisobi, at no time did the CBN ever suggest or imply that it would tinker with the foreign exchange deposits of customers.

The Communication director urged all domiciliary accounts operators and the banking public to go about their legitimate foreign exchange transactions and disregard fictitious stories meant to pitch them against the apex Bank and possibly trigger chaos in the financial system.

At his post Monetary Policy Meeting (MPC) briefing on Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele had announced the apex Bank’s decision to stop its weekly sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux de Change (BDCs) with the DMBs getting the nod to henceforth service customers’ needs with foreign exchange sales.

Based on this new policy direction, Banks’ Chief Executives met at the weekend and expressed their commitment to meet the demands by genuine Foreign Exchange (FX) end-users as directed by the apex bank.