CBN sells forex to BDCs at N1450/$

The Central Bank of Nigeria on Thursday sold dollars to eligible Bureau De Change operators at the rate of N1450/dollars.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the acting director of the Trade and Exchange Department at the CBN, AA Mahdi, on Thursday.

This comes days after the apex bank sold $123m to authorised dealers.

The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria claimed that they were excluded in that tranche of forex sales.

The President of the ABCON, Aminu Gwadebe, in an interview with The PUNCH, said only banks got the forex intervention.

In the latest move, the CBN said it has “approved the sales of FX to eligible Bureau De Change to meet the demand for invisible transactions. The sum of $20,000 is to be sold to each BDC at the rate of N1,450/$ (representing the lower band of the trading rate at NAFEM in the previous trading day).”

Premising the move on the ongoing reforms in the foreign exchange market, the CBN said 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.”

It warned the BDCs to sell to eligible end-users at a margin not more than 1.5 per cent above the purchase rate from CBN.