Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele has disclosed that the apex bank will not renew the operating licences of Bureaux de Change (BDCs).
Emefiele, who spoke shortly after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, accused BDCs of deliberate economic sabotage and misusing the weekly allocation to them, saying they had become wholesales and illegal dealers.
“The Central Bank will henceforth discontinue the sale of forex to Bureaux de Change operators,” Emefiele said.
He also accused international agencies and embassies operating in Nigeria of illegally patronising BDCs.
According to him, international development finance institutions, embassies and others are supposed to patronise the importer and exporter window, where there is transparency.
Henceforth, previous allocation of foreign exchange to BDCs will now be given to banks to sell to customers, he said.
As of November last year, the CBN had licensed 2,991 BDCs.
Out of them, 1,777 were registered in Lagos and the entire Southern Nigeria, while the remaining 1,214 were registered in Northern Nigeria.
There is a wide gap of about N100 between the official dollar exchange rate and the BDC rate.
