The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday says it will start immediate refund of capital deposit to Bureaux de Change (BDC) promoters with pending applications.
According to a circular signed by Ibrahim Tukur for the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of the apex bank, this is in furtherance of the decision to discontinue allocation of Foreign Exchange (FX) to BDC operators.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had on July 27 announced the discontinuation of sale of forex to BDC's in the country, saying that the parallel market's operations had become a conduit for illicit forex flows and graft. The CBN governor, while making the announcement said weekly sales of foreign exchange by the CBN will henceforth go directly to commercial banks, and that the CBN will also call off the processing of applications for for BDC licences in the country.
Tukur urged eligible promoters of BDCs to forward their application for refund in writing to the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of the CBN.
“The requests should be accompanied with the following documents:
“Telex copy of the capital deposit of N35 million; account details for the refund, which should be the same as the account from which the capital deposit originated, including the Bank name, account name and account number.
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“Copy of the bank draft/telex for payment of licensing fee of NI million (if any),” he said.
He advised eligible applicants to submit hardcopiesof their requests to CBN Head Office, Central in Abuja or the Annex in Lagos, while urging commercial banks to stop processing payments for their customers.
“Softcopy of the request in above may be sent in advance of the hard copy to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
“In addition, all Deposit Money Banks are hereby directed to henceforth stop accepting instructions from customers to transfer capital deposit of N35 million to the designated CBN account for the purpose of applying for BDC licences,” he said.
