Banking Briefs, BREAKING NEWS
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The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is likely to provide more foreign exchange to banks at a special rate of N375 to a dollar.
Isaac Okorafor, acting director, Corporate Communications, CBN, told Arise News Network, that “The Central Bank of Nigeria took the decision to directly fund banks with additional foreign exchange to be able to take care of some staff personal travel allowance, school fees and medical payments. With that, we have tried to set an exchange rate for those transactions at 20 per cent above the interbank rate – that is, 20 per cent above the interbank rate that ranges between N305 and N315.”
The move by the Apex bank is one amongst several effort to douse the pressure from the fiscal authorities calling for the review of the current exchange rate regime. The National Economic Council, NEC, after a five-hour closed-door meeting, presided over by acting President Yemi Osinbajo, last week urged the CBN to urgently review the foreign exchange policy.
Okorafor said, “the banks have been directed to sell to all the people that will come up for it and they actually have been directed to open up avenues at the airport so that they can deal with these demands”.
On the scarcity of forex, Okoroafor said, “the cause is obvious: we can’t earn enough again and we’re trying to rationalise and prioritise what we have at the moment so that it can meet the most basic needs of the country.”
— Feb. 20, 2017 @ 5:36 GMT
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