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FG moves to refund BDC’s deposits, licensing fees

CBN moves to refund deposits, licensing fees to BDCs

 

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Tony Chukwunyem Following the halt in foreign exchange supply to Bureau De Change operators, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that it will commence the return  minimum capital deposits and licensing fees to promoters, who have pending BDC licence applications.

 

In a letter to promoters of BDCs and banks posted on its website yesterday, the apex bank also directed the latter to stop accepting instructions from customers applying for BDC licences.

 

This is coming just as the chief executive officers of banks met yesterday to announce their readiness to go by the apex bank’s directives as regards forex transactions to customers.

 

The letter signed by Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department, CBN, Ibrahim Tukur, said: ”Further to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) briefing of July 27 2021 the CBN will commence the immediate refund of capital deposits and licensing fees (where applicable) to promoters who have pending BDC licence applications with the CBN.

 

“Accordingly, the CBN, hereby, advises as follows: Such BDC promoters should forward their requests for the refund in writing to the Director Financial Policy and Regulation Department, Central Bank of Nigeria, Abuja.

 

“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, account number, copy of the bank draft/telex for payment of licensing fee of N1 million (if any).

 

“In addition, all DMBs are, hereby, directed to henceforth stop accepting instructions from customers to transfer a capital deposit of N35 million to the designated CBN account for the purpose of applying for BDC licences.”

 

Meanwhile, chief executive officers of deposit money banks in the country have assured Nigerians of their readiness and capacity to implement new directives issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) with respect to the sale of foreign exchange to retail customers, following its discontinuation of forex sales to Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators.

 

This is just as the apex bank also promised to return capital deposits, licensing fees to BDC promoters with pending licence applications.

 

Speaking under the aegis of Body of Bank Chief Executives at a virtual press briefing yesterday, the bank CEOs said that lenders were already complying with the new directives and that Nigerians could start going to their bank branches to start carrying out forex transactions in line with the CBN guidelines.

 

The bank CEOs include the Access Bank boss and the Chairman of Body of Bank Chief Executives, Herbert Wigwe, Segun Agbaje of GT Holding Company, Wole Adeniyi of Stanbic IBTC, Tomi Somefun of Unity Bank, Yemisi Edun of FCMB , Patrick Akinwuntan of Ecobank and Bukola Smith of FSDH Merchant Bank.

 

According to Wigwe, the banks have started implementing the directives of the CBN by deploying the needed infrastructure including dedicated tellers at their branches to sell FX to customers. He, however, warned that anybody that attempts to purchase FX with fake documents would be reported to the CBN and the Police for possible prosecution.

He said: “The banking industry as a whole is willing, ready and able to carry out this function. As you know banks have had very strict compliance measures in terms of KYC and all of that.

 

And so in terms of verification and making sure that people who do apply are eligible, the banks more than any other institution in the country have the capacity. If you look at the bank branches, across the country you will agree with me more that the banks have more than enough capacity to deal with this.

 

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