By John Ikani
The Association of Bureau De Change Operators has said it will commence what it called ‘Operation No Street Trading’ to stop the hawking of foreign exchange by BDC operators.
Aminu Gwadabe, ABCON president, said this was one of the resolutions unanimously reached by BDCs directors at the meeting of operators on Tuesday in Lagos.
While noting that all market participants would work together to lower the foreign currency rate, Gwadabe warned that non-compliance will not be condoned and errant members will be sanctioned.
A copy of the resolutions seen by Heritage Times reads: “All operators to collaborate in bringing down the forex rates in the market; street trading by BDC should be discouraged/banned and ABCON will commence operation ‘no street trading’.
“BDCs should improve return rendition to regulatory authorities; margin review to meet operational requirements; widening the scope of transactions; digitalisation of BDC operations.
“ABCON to punish errand members; ABCON compliance officer and staff to commence nationwide supervision of BDC operations.”
What you should know
The country’s currency was recently devalued after the CBN adopted the NAFEX rate of N410/$1 as its official exchange rate.
A report by the Punch on Saturday revealed that BDC operators got the United States dollar from the Central Bank of Nigeria at N393 but sold it for N494 last Friday.
Bank sources had disclosed that the CBN was providing $10,000 to each of the BDCs twice in a week.
ABCON urge patronage of only licensed BDC operators
ABCON had in a statement on Sunday advised foreign exchange users and the general public to patronise only BDC operators licensed by the CBN in order to get dollars at the approved rate.
Gwadabe said the parallel market activities had for years become major drivers of the exchange rates, adding that control over such transactions had become burdensome.
According to him, forex speculators were capitalising on the state of the forex market and the naira to sell dollars above the CBN-approved margin.
Gwadabe said CBN-licenced BDCs were not selling dollars to end-users above the N2 per dollar margin set by the regulator to protect the naira against forex speculators and ensure exchange rate stability.
