First Bank, Access, Take Steps To End CBN Forex Dependence  

Commercial banks in the country are taking steps to end their dependence on the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN for forex allocations.

This becomes necessary, sources in the money banks say, due to the acute forex shortage in the country and the decision of the apex bank to end forex allocation to banks by December.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had in February directed banks to look for other means of generating foreign exchange, warning banks that the apex bank will end forex allocation to them by the end of the year.

For instance, Emefiele suggested that the banks could generate forex through export proceeds, as their continued dependence on the apex bank for forex is no longer tenable.

Emefiele said, “The era is coming to an end when, because your customers need 100million dollars in foreign exchange or 200 million dollars, you now want to pack all the dollars and pass it to CBN to give you dollars.

“It is coming to an end before or by the end of this year. We will tell them don’t come to the Central Bank for foreign exchange again go and generate your export proceeds.

“When those export proceeds come, we will fund them at 5% for you and they will earn rebait. Then you can sell those proceeds to your customers that want 100 million dollars. But to say you will continue to come to the Central Bank to give you dollars, we will stop it,” the CBN boss said.

“Nigeria cannot continue to depend on FX earnings to fund its import obligations from revenue coming from earnings from products where we cannot determine both price and quantity.”

In line with this, First Bank and Access Bank have already notified their customers that they would no longer disburse dollar cash for Business Travel Allowance, BTA, and Personal Travel Allowance, PTA to customers.

Forex purchases, the banks said would now be disbursed through dollar debit cards.

“We think this is the best way going forward in other to save the Naira and reduce customers’ forex arbitrage. Through the use of debit card funny or criminal dollar transactions will be reduced to the barest minimum,” a top bank executive said on Wednesday.

According to FirstBank in a statement, “The full Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) and Business Travel Allowance (BTA) of $4,000 and $5,000 respectively will now be disbursed into your FirstBank Travel Card. All applications will be in line with Regulatory Requirements.

“Kindly ensure that all PTA/BTA applications along with the approved Form A are submitted at the branch exactly 14 days before your proposed travel date. Sales is limited to two quarters a year.”

On its part, Access Bank said, “We would like to once again inform you that we disburse authorised personal and business travel allowance FX requests through our Access Travel Debit Card. The Access Travel Debit Card has been created to enable you to transact seamlessly when you travel abroad.”