BEVERLY HILLS, May 30, (THEWILL) – The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has advised foreign exchange users and the general public to patronise only Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-licenced bureaux de change (BDCs) to get dollars at the approved rate.
In a statement issued at the weekend, ABCON President, Alhaji (Dr.) Aminu Gwadabe, said only CBN-licenced BDCs operated with regulatory guidelines of selling dollars at approved rate.
Gwadabe advised members of the public to always patronise CBN-licensed BDCs, which were regulatory-compliant and operated within international best practices.
He said that parallel market activities had for years become major drivers of the exchange rates and control over such transactions had become burdensome.
He said that forex speculators were capitalising on the state of the foreign exchange market and the naira to sell dollars above CBN-approved margin.
Gwadabe said that CBN-licensed BDCs were not selling dollars to end users above the N2 per dollar margin set by the financial sector regulator to protect the naira against foreign exchange speculators and ensure exchange rate stability.
The ABCON Executive Council has therefore denied reports, claiming that the CBN-licensed BDCs bought dollars at N393 to dollar and sold at N494 to dollar, representing N101 margin.
The ABCON Executive Council has therefore brought the inaccurate report to the attention of the Nigerian Press Council, urging it to call those responsible for the misleading report to order.
The ABCON said it was constrained to bring to the attention of the Nigerian Press Council the need to advise those misleading the public to diligently observe professionalism in whatever they publish.
He stated that the professional ethic of accuracy, truthfulness and the right of every individual and organisation to fair hearing is an age-long truth.
A newspaper had in a report published on Saturday, 29th May, 2021, titled “Naira Devaluation: BDCs Get dollars at N393, Sells For N494” attributed a report to an anonymous commercial source.
The report read: “Sources from some commercial banks told our correspondent that the banks were asked to fund the BDCs at the rate of 393/$ as of Friday”. A bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “We are still giving them $10,000/BDC twice a week. As of today, we are giving them at the rate of N393/$.”
The ABCON described the report as “factually inaccurate assertions as neither do commercial banks fund BDCs nor do BDCs collect dollars from the banks.”
The ABCON Executive Council said that while its members complied rigorously with the CBN’s regulatory requirement of a predetermined weekly transaction margin, it had failed to see what informed the newspaper’s spurious claim of an imaginary selling margin.
ABCON Executive Council said ABCON had continued to ensure that BDCs filed their reports as and when due.
The BDCs also did customers Know Your Customer (KYC) and due diligence reports.
It said that while BDCs were licensed to offer retail, across the counter, foreign exchange transactions, they however played critical roles in the economy and contributed to the economic development of the country like ensuring order and confidence in the forex market, providing data for monetary policy, channels for CBN Intervention in retail forex market and creation of over 15,000 jobs among others.
ABCON had therefore assured the public of its commitment to orderly conduct of retail forex transactions as defined and regulated by the CBN for licensed BDCs
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
