After several months of the Central Bank of Nigeria ban on the sale of foreign exchange to Bureau De Change( BCD) operators, the CBN will today resume the sale of foreign currencies to the BDCs, as this move is expected to further strengthen the exchange rate of the Naira.
Earlier, the regulator had issued a notice stating the plans to resume the bi-weekly sale of 10,000 dollars per operator from today.
At the parallel market last week the naira closed at the rate of 430 per dollar compared to 480 a week ago, this follows the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive of $50 million renewed intervention of the Investors & Exporters (I&E) window, a move that prompted suspicious that the domestic currency was headed to a fall.
As of today the official CBN rate still stands at N380 to a dollar while bank rates stood averagely between N400 and N470 to a United States dollar.
Following the announcement of forex sales resumption to the BDC today, this was part of the Apex Bank effort to enhance access to hard currencies after the resumption of international flight over the weekend.
No wonder, the supply of forex in the black market has suddenly improved with speculators anxious to offload the dollars in their possession to minimize losses.
This explains the reason speculators and foreign currency hoarders appear disappointed by the resumption of dollar sales to Deposit Money Banks to clear arrears of demand as well as the announcement to commence sales to BDCs on 7th of September.
