Fx unification: CBN should grant digital autonomy to BDC operators — ABCON
By Ibiyemi Mathew
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been advised to grant digital autonomy to Bureaux De Change (BDCs) operators in the country to enhance the achievement of the federal Government harmonized foreign exchange rate policies.
The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) made this known in a statement yesterday.
According to the President of ABCON, Dr. Aminu Gwadabe, called on the apex bank to grant a no objection approval for the BDCs to fully go digital on all their operational correspondences.
He said the move would promote bring about rate convergence, curb volatility in the market and promote economic growth.
He said ABCON had in the past, led its members to achieve rate convergence in 2006, 2009, 2018 to 2020 before the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.
He said granting digital autonomy to the operators will lead to a true market rate discovery, enhance the achievement of the federal Government harmonised foreign exchange rate policies and promote effective monitoring of BDCs transactions for statutory and regulatory requirement.
He said aside providing employment for over 40,000 employees within the sector, digital autonomy for operators will usher in transparency, accountability and ease of supervision.
“As a proactive Organisation and an umbrella body of central bank licensed BDCs and in line with the CBN planned reforms on BDCs for tech compliance, ABCON started various digitization reforms since 2016 to date for licensed operators,” he said.
According to ABCON, now is the time for the CBN to democratize and centralize digital operational mechanism for all BDCs, by granting all operators the autonomy to go digital.
Gwadabe advised the CBN to diversify BDCs scope of operation and Business model from cash-based to digital payment.
He said the naijabdcs.com platform inaugurated by ABCON in 2018 was a step by the group to digitize operations of BDCs in the country.
“ABCON has invested several millions of naira in IT research, developments, designs, implementations of various layers of automation on business transformation from manual to digital. Our members now have transactions monitoring systems with installed IT office equipments and internet connections,” he said.
“Our members now record their transactions on Amazon Web Service (AWS) online real time and extract their daily reports for return rendition. Operators have also integrated with NIBSS, Bank Verification Number verification and validation platforms,” he said.
