Sharp practices have continued to dog forex transactions among commercial banks, investigations have shown. Such practices include banks using forex allocated to them to sell to Bureaux De Change (BDCs) for other purposes. Investigations showed that rather than deal directly with the BDCs, the commercial banks trade with the forex thus starving the BDCs of forex and making it unavailable to persons who besiege the BDCs for the instrument.

These sharp practices has been fingered as the major cause of the sliding fortunes of the naira in the forex market in spite of the efforts of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to shore up the value of the local currency.

This latest development has compelled CBN to suspend all commercial banks in Nigeria except First Bank from selling foreign exchange directly to BDC operators following their failure to comply with the July 22, 2016, directive  which mandated them to sell inflows from International Money Transfer Operators (IMTO) to BDCs. The CBN also suspended 195 BDCs from the market following their failure to renew their operating licenses.

The CBN has instead directed the agent banks to sell forex proceeds from diaspora remittances to Travelex, who will then sell directly to the BDC.

The naira has maintained a steady rise at parallel market closing at N467 from over N500 in the last week in the parallel market since Travelex commenced the distribution of $15, 000 weekly to BDCs from diaspora remittances as directed by the CBN. Travelex has also commenced the limited sale of forex directly to travelers who qualify.