In line with its effort to sustain the interventions in the foreign exchange market of the nation’s inter-bank market, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has issued fresh licenses to a list of 3,389 approved Bureaux De Change (BDCs) operators as at August 8th, 2017.
This represents an increase by 150, the number of those allowed to trade in forex within the country, since April 24 this year when the CBN last released the updated list of BDCs.
About two years ago, the number stood at 1,400 which is expected to put more pressure on Nigeria’s foreign reserves, considering the total amount of dollars that the CBN sells to BDCs will significantly increase at $40,000 per week.
Despite concerns in some quarters over the pressure that this will put on the nation’s foreign reserves, the apex bank has defended its decision to continue to approve BDCs that are ready to comply with regulations, contending that this was necessary in order to increase liquidity in the foreign exchange market as well as ensure naira stability.
The decision by the CBN to stop dollar sales to BDCs in January 2016 proved a costly mistake as the Naira took a plunge from ₦265/$1 to ₦283/$1 on the parallel market at the time.