BDCs lobby to resume publication of parallel market rates
…As Naira depreciates further against the dollar
Reports cited by Nigerian NewsDirect have revealed that Bureau De Change Operators are lobbying to resume publication of parallel market rates.
Recall that former CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele had stated that BDC operators have become a conduit for illegal financial flows working with corrupt people to conduct money laundering in Nigeria.
This further resulted in the ban on AbokiFX for publishing parallel market exchange rates online.
In September 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria went after AbokiFX, a platform that publishes black market exchange rates for the Naira online
At the time, then-CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele noted that the owner of AbokiFX, Oniwinde Adedotun “is an illegal FX dealer that has inflow and sold tens of millions of FX to several Nigerian companies in contravention of the FX law, he directly benefits from the rates he quotes daily on his website.”
As AbokiFX stopped aggregating the black-market rates, Naijabdcs.com the online platform owned by ABCON also stopped publishing the rates online.
However, in a statement cited by Nigerian NewsDirect yesterday, the President of Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Aminu Gwadabe revealed that efforts underway to authorise the ABCON to publicly display the black-market rates of the naira against the dollar on online platforms.
The ABCON President explained that the association was proposing to regulators to allow BDCs to restart the public display of exchange rates.
He also noted that as part of the proposal, ABCON is upgrading the functionality of their existing website to compete with other platforms in the economy.
In a related development, the Naira depreciated further against the dollar yesterday.
The NAFEX depreciated by 0.66 percent to close at N906.54/USD, while the BDC rate depreciated by 0.37 percent to close at N1,365/USD.
The Nigerian naira experienced increased pressure in the foreign exchange market as it weakened against the US dollar due to low dollar supply at the official market.
During intraday trading on Friday, the dollar reached as high as N1,311, while the lower bid rate was N745/$.
The daily FX market turnover dropped by 49.74 percent to $73.33 million on Monday from $145.89 million on Friday. In the money market, the Overnight (O/N) rate decreased by 2.25 percent to close at 21.00 percent, and the Open Repo (OPR) rate decreased by 2.15 percent to close at 19.95
The Naira was trading at an all-time low of N1360/$ in the parallel market, and about N1371/$ in the P2P market, representing a 47 percent discrepancy from the N925.34/$ trading in the official market.
