The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced a new set of measures aimed at increasing the availability of foreign exchange to Nigerians.
The apex bank made its new policy drive known through a press release issued on Monday and signed by its Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor. In it the regulator indicated that it would be providing direct funding to banks to meet the foreign exchange needs of Nigerians for personal travel, medical fees, and school fees.
The CBN also directed banks to open foreign exchange outlets at major airports “as soon as logistics permit”. According to the CBN’s statement, the measure has been introduced to ease travelers’ burdens and ensure that transactions are carried out at more competitive exchange rates.
Under the new rules, retail foreign exchange transactions will be carried out at a rate not exceeding 20% above the interbank market rate.
Nigeria has struggled to deal with a scarcity of foreign exchange in recent times. An initial strategy deployed by the CBN to peg the currency exchange rate was abandoned in 2016 for a managed float, in which the government occasionally intervenes to determine market rates. There have been calls from some experts to introduce a full float and let the naira find its ‘true level’ as a way of solving the foreign exchange problem, but the CBN has not indicated an interest in letting this happen.
