Autonomous sources control prices of dollars – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says autonomous sources such as exporters and correspondent banks now control the price of dollars in banks and the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment.

The Director, Corporate Communications, Mr Mu’azu Ibrahim, said this in an interview on Friday in Abuja. He said although the price of Naira remained stable at N197 to a dollar and N284.1 to a pound sterling at the interbank market, it was hovering at the parallel market. The Naira changed for N373 to a dollar and N505 to pound sterling on Friday in Abuja.

Ibrahim said customers would also find Forex expensive in the banks or while using their debit cards abroad because the Forex got by banks from the CBN was not sufficient for all transactions. He explained that for this reason, banks reserved the Forex they got for developmental transactions, especially to manufacturers looking to import necessary materials to aid the real sectors of the economy.

Ibrahim said although the CBN had not put a ban on accessing Forex for school fees or medicals, it was not a priority so banks might use their discretion to allocate or not to allocate Forex for such. “They should be able to use their discretion, looking at their capacity to source from the interbank and the other autonomous sources.