• As Dealers Subscribe To 65.94% Of $100m Offer
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Wednesday said it has kept to its promise of adequately fund the foreign exchange markets, which was why it opened new windows such as the Small and Medium scale Enterprises, besides that for invisibles through the Bureaux de Change (BDCs), to achieve one of its core mandates of stabilizing the Naira against major currencies of the world.
Following weeks of sustained funding of the markets and helping to considerably reduce the Naira’s volatility, the CBN said on Wednesday, authorized foreign exchange dealers were unable to absorb the entire $100m supplied to the inter-bank wholesale fx market.
The authorized dealers could only subscribe to $65.94m, following which Isaac Okoroafor, the apex bank’s Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications, assured that there was no cause for alarm, as the development only proved there was enough to meet the legitimate needs of genuine customers.
Nonetheless, the CBN, also on Wednesday, offered another $150m to be auctioned at the wholesale windows of the inter-bank market, even as keen followers of the development expect this to rub off on and enhance the value of the Naira.
Okoroafor told newsmen that the CBN was in receipt of requests submitted by authorized dealers on behalf of customers for interventions in the retail segment of the market, but that it would continue its intervention of $20,000 to dealers in the BDC segment this week.
While stressing that the CBN was nearing its goal of rate convergence between that of the inter-bank and that of the Bureau de Change (BDCs), Okorafor reechoed the assurances of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, to sustain the current levels of interventions in all segments of the market.
Commenting also on the banks barred from the SMEs Forex window, Okorafor reiterated the earlier assurance that the CBN would ease the suspension immediately any of those affected showed evidence of significant utilisation of the fund allocated to them under the window.
