With speculative pressure on the parallel market refusing to abate, the naira continued to head south in the market yesterday, where it fell to a record N418 to the dollar.
The situation was largely attributed to the suspension of eight banks from the forex market since last week Tuesday, due to their inability to return the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)/Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company dollar deposits to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) domiciled with the CBN.
The banks – First Bank of Nigeria (FirstBank) Limited, Diamond Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Keystone Bank Limited, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Limited, and Heritage Bank Limited – were yet to remit a total of $1.804 billion NNPC/NLNG funds to the TSA as of yesterday.
Since their suspension, the naira has falen steadily due to strong demand for the greenback by customers of the eight banks banned from the official forex market.
It was gathered that a lot of them resorted to the parallel market for dollar purchases to meet pressing obligations, as they await the resolution of the matter between the banks and the CBN.However, the spot rate of the naira on the interbank market closed at N318.14 to the dollar, marginally higher than the N318.83 at which it closed the previous day.
The performance of the naira on the interbank forex market was attributed to an intervention by the central bank, which sold around $1.5 million yesterday to support the currency.
Also, in furtherance of its efforts to liberalise the foreign exchange market, to ensure liquidity, and make FX readily available to low end users, the CBN yesterday disclosed that it has licensed 11 more International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) to operate in Nigeria.
The central bank, in a statement signed by its acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said the move was in line with the existing guidelines on International Money Transfer Services in Nigeria (2014).
The newly registered IMTOs are Trans-fast Remittance LLC, Worldremit Limited, UAE Exchange Centre LLC, Wari Limited, Homesend S.C.R.L, Small World Financial Services Group Limited, Weblink International Limited, Cashpot Limited, DT&T Corporation Limited, FIEM Group LLC DBA PING Express, and CP Express Limited.CBN also reiterated its commitment to providing an enabling environment for international money transfer services in Nigeria.
Source: Thisday News
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