CBN to refund N35m capital deposits to BDC applicants

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday says it will start immediate refund of capital deposit to Bureaux de Change (BDC) promoters with pending applications.

According to a circular signed by Ibrahim Tukur for the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of the apex bank, this is in furtherance of the decision to discontinue allocation of Foreign Exchange (FX) to BDC operators.

Tukur urged eligible promoters of BDCs to forward their application for refund in writing to the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of the CBN.

“The requests should be accompanied with the following documents:

“Telex copy of the capital deposit of N35 million; account details for the refund, which should be the same as the account from which the capital deposit originated, including theBank name, account name and account number.

“Copy of the bank draft/telex for payment of licensing fee of N1 million (if any),” he said.

He advised eligible applicants to submit hardcopies of their requests to CBN Head Office, Central in Abuja or the Annex in Lagos, while urging commercial banks to stop processing payments for their customers.

“Softcopy of the request in above may be sent in advance of the hard copy to [email protected].

“In addition, all Deposit Money Banks are hereby directed to henceforth stop accepting instructions from customers to transfer capital deposit of N35 million to the designated CBN account for the purpose of applying for BDC licences,” he said.