Forex speculators to lose N100bn — ABCON

Foreign exchange (forex) speculators will lose over N100 billion in the next one month as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sustains massive funding for Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators.

The President of the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Dr Aminu Gwadabe, who disclosed this at the weekend in Lagos, said the CBN was committed to improving funding for over 5,000 BDCs nationwide in a new move to deepen market liquidity and protect the naira against speculators.

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Dr Gwadabe, therefore, called for the return of normalcy to the market as the ongoing speculative behaviour hampering the market operations and stability would come at a huge loss to speculators.

The ABCON boss linked the continued fall of the naira at the parallel market and Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window to currency speculators hoarding dollars to profit from the currency crisis.

He said the perpetrators were creating artificial scarcity of the greenback within the market to cause more woes for the local currency.

The naira was on Friday, May 22, exchanging at N485/$1 at the parallel market and N411.25/$1 at the I&E forex window.

Dr Gwadabe revealed that ABCON’s management and the CBN-licensed BDCs would fight alongside the regulator to ensure that speculators lost their capital should they persist in the illegal activity.

He said, “The ABCON and the CBN have observed with disdain the speculative behaviour currently be-clouding the market with the misinformation that the CBN has adopted the I&E window as its official rate. The above information is not true because as operators we still funded our accounts at our normal rates of N393/$ and not I&E window rates for our operation this Friday.”

The ABCON management, therefore, advised its members not to join on that behaviour as CBN remained resolute with its partnership with the group and was looking at various options to induce liquidity in the sector.