Bureau De Change operators in Abuja on Tuesday demanded for the refund of their N35 million deposit from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The amount was part of the CBN guidelines required for registration of BDCs to operate in the country.
In separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria, the BDC operators said this followed the apex bank’s decision on Monday to stop selling foreign exchange to them.
NAN reports that the CBN’s decision was due to alleged dishonest activities of some operators who were financing unauthorised transactions with foreign exchange procured from the CBN.
The CBN had said that providing forex to 2,786 BDC operators was putting undue pressure on the nation’s limited foreign reserve.
NAN recalls that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said any BDC operator not satisfied with the apex bank’s decision should return their operational licence and ask for refund of the N35 million deposit.
In his comments, Yusuf Ibrahim, the Chairman of the Association of BDC Operators in Abuja, said his members would meet with CBN on the need to seek for refund of their N35 million.
Ibrahim said: “The issue of N35 million deposit has to be revisited.
“Also, we need to know if this policy is temporary or permanent.
“This will determine our next action.
“We are saying this because the licence from CBN is now useless.
“It does not favour us one bit.
“So, they should return this money so that we can put it back into business and make profit.”
Another operator, Malam Salisu Ibrahim, said: “Though I will like CBN to give us our deposit, we will lose the security and protection of the government, which is important in this business.
“We rarely have problem with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and other law enforcement agencies because our activities are sanctioned by CBN.
“Even if CBN says come and collect your deposit, I for one will not collect it because of the cover I get from CBN.”
Also, Alhaji Mohammed Sanusi, a BDC operator, predicted that in the near future, the new policy would make the market to be flooded with dollars.
Sanusi said: “I believe that dollars will flood the market because though CBN has lifted the ban on deposit of foreign currencies in banks, wealthy people will not utilise this.
“This is because they have the mindset that if they deposit certain amount of say $1 million, the authorities will catch up with them.
“So, they will be forced to sell them to us and this will help to sustain our businesses.
“In fact, if all people hoarding dollars bring them out, the problem will now be how to get enough naira to cover it.”
Sanusi said the policy was likely to crash the foreign exchange market, which would result in panic selling, since wealthy people could not deposit in the bank.
Sanusi said since the policy was announced on Monday, a dollar was currently going for N283.
He said the effect of the new policy would be felt in the market toward the weekend.
Another BDC operator, Ibrahim Kachalla, assured customers that the BDC segment would not collapse completely in spite of the new CBN policy.
Kachalla said: “For a while now, CBN only sells $10,000 per operator, which is not enough to cater for our customers.
“We can survive because most of the dollars we trade with currently are not CBN’s dollars.
“$10,000 is nothing in this business and sometimes we don’t get that much.
“People that had hidden dollars for a while and those whose business is to buy and keep dollars to sell at a later date to make profit, will be our source for now.
“There are countless people like that and because of them we will not run out of business.
“We will also get from the big time businessmen that the nature of their business guarantees constant inflow of dollars.”
A financial expert, Emeka Moses, said foreign exchange market would be worse than it was with the new policy.
Moses, who is also the Managing Director of E.M. Consolidated Investment Limited, said that the policy would lead to liquidation of majority of the BDC operators, job loss and more volatility in the forex market.
He said: “Let’s wait and see how the market will allocate forex without BDCs.
“Let’s see if banks that have severally been blamed for round-tripping will do it more effectively than BDCs.”
Moses predicted that naira would be exchanged for N300 against the dollar in the first week of the policy implementation.
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