The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that it is working with commercial banks to clear backlog of foreign exchange worth $10 billion dollars within the next two weeks.
Acting Governor of the apex bank, Mr. Folashodun Shonubi disclosed this at a forum in Lagos. He said the backlogs would be cleared through different structures within the forex market.
Shonubi explained that the banks, which control 75 per cent of the forex transactions, will play significant role in seeing that the backlog are cleared, adding that the local banks have been working with the apex bank on various structures to clear it.
“There are some customers who still have their obligations and part of the restructuring with the banks in Nigeria, is also to clear that backlog. That is something we have been discussing for a while. I expect that we will do that, within the next one or two weeks,” Shonubi said.
He noted that in considering the volume of forex interventions, role and the depth of the CBN intervention is overemphasised.
He added that a lot of forex transactions go on through the commercial banks without the CBN’s input and people do not talk about them.
On the need to modernize bureau de change (BDCs) operations in the country, Shonubi tasked operators to be technology compliant or lose their licenses.
He said the current BDC market is largely cash-driven, and plan of the apex bank is to modernize their operations to reduce cash interactions.
Shonubi who noted that the BDCs were created to sell small value forex transactions, expressed concern at the way operators abandoned the role
