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The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, announced that naira has depreciated at the official market to 410 against the dollar.
This was contained in a statement released by Emefiele at a summit on the economy by Bank CEOs on Friday, February 26.
The CBN governor, in the statement, said the drop in crude oil earnings and the associated reduction in foreign portfolio inflows significantly affected the supply of foreign exchange into Nigeria.
According to him, “In order to adjust for the decrease in the supply of foreign exchange, the naira depreciated at the official window from N305/$ to N360/$ and now hovers around N410/$,” Recall that the naira exchanged for 478/$ at the parallel market on Friday, February 2021.”
Meanwhile, reports that the CBN ordered commercial banks to open new dollar accounts with offshore lenders for receiving international money transfers.surfaced recently.
The CBN’s new order was disclosed by the WorldRemit, an International Money Transfer Operators (IMTO) player to its clients.
Recall that the central bank raised the alarm that its policy mandating IMTOs to pay diaspora remittances beneficiaries in dollars is being flouted.
The banking regulator noted that all mobile money operators should disable wallets from receipt of funds from IMTOs following suspected abuse of policy guidelines by the IMTOs.
Speaking about the order, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, explained that analysed data on IMTOs inflows into the country over the past year.
Emefiele condemned the use of unsafe unofficial channels, which also supported the diversion of remittance flows meant for Nigeria, thereby undermining Nigeria’s Foreign Exchange management framework.
The WorldRemit that confirmed the CBN’s new order noted that all Nigerian banks will be mandated to facilitate money transfers by automatically opening US Dollar bank accounts for those who do not currently have US Dollar bank accounts.
According to the company, “This development ensures that all international money transfers will be successfully processed even if senders enter Naira account details for transactions
“Further to this announcement, the CBN also stated that a $2,000 withdrawal limit will apply to these accounts.”
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