The naira on Wednesday strengthened further to a record high of N495 since last week of trading above N500 per dollar at the parallel market following the new foreign exchange policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The naira gained N8 or 1.6 percent over N503 per dollar traded on Tuesday, BusinessDay findings reveal.
However, BDC operators have decried the unhealthy competition in exchange rate spread between the banks and the BDCs.
Aminu Gwadabe, acting president, Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), told BusinessDay that the renewed liquidity injection drive and the incentives given to bank to trade at 20 percent margin were really impacting positively on the value of the naira, as the currency trades below N500/$ as of now at the parallel end of the foreign exchange market.
However, the concern of the association and the entire BDC operators is that of different applicable exchange rates to be use by both the banks and them on the same products at the same market.
While the BDCs have their two-way quotes of N381/$ buying and selling at N399/$ with a margin of 18/$, the banks quotes at buying N315/$ and selling at 375/$, giving them a whooping super profit of N60/$.
This is unskewed and will lead to an unhealthy competition and detrimental to the existence of over 3000 licensed BDCs nationwide with a job capacity of over 30,000 Nigerian.
Another area of concern is that while the banks are given express approval to open shop at the nation airports, the BDCs are still facing a ban on branch networking.
“We have already submitted our concerns to CBN as one of their critical partner in exchange rate stabilisation and receiving positive response,” he said.
