CBN to clear forex backlogs in two weeks – Shonubi

The acting governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Folashodun Shonubi, has said the apex bank will clear all the foreign exchange backlogs within two weeks.

Shonubi, who disclosed this in Lagos, said the CBN is working with commercial banks to address the challenge of FX backlogs, which some analysts put at $10 billion.

“The banks have been working with the central bank on various structures to clear the backlog. As a matter of fact, there’s a large amount of the obligations that the banks have already taken up so what happened was that at maturity they actually made the foreign exchange available for those who needed to use it, the importers. So we are discussing with them so we can structure their roles, so that’s very different.

“Then, there are some customers who still have their own obligations and part of the instruction of the banks in Nigeria is to also clear that backlog, something we’ve been discussing for a while and expect that we’ll clear it within the next one or two weeks,” he said.

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Shonubi, who hinted that the bank is working with FINTECH companies to modernise the BDC operations in the country, also said the CBN is investigating some Bureau De Change (BDC) agents for violating the policies guiding the FX market.

“For the last few weeks we’ve been investigating and there’s been quite a number of players out there that have been bringing in money and selling in less than official ways,” he said.

While noting that the CBN occasionally intervenes in the FX market to stabilise the rates, he said the apex bank contribution to the FX market is less than 25%.

“Today we still intervene in the market so it’s not as if it has affected our ability to make monies available to banks in the Nigerian foreign exchange market (NAFEX) but when you look at the volumes, I think again we overemphasise what the role and depth of the CBN intervention is,” he said.

He, however, refuted reports that the CBN owed JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs a combined sum of $7.5 billion as of the financial year ended December 2022.

“There is no outstanding $7 billion with JPMorgan in any form, it has been branded everywhere based on their opinion that was put on paper and everybody is talking about it,” he added.