In a move that may boost the confidence of both local and foreign investors, the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) said it is working with commercial banks in the country to clear the unsettled foreign exchange backlog owed to local businesses that are currently hurting companies in the next two weeks.
Acting CBN Governor, Mr. Folashodun Shonubi stated this in Lagos while speaking on the role players in the foreign exchange market should play to ensure there is liquidity in the system, especially, the Bureau De Change segment of the market.
He said the bank and commercial banks in the country have been working towards clearing the backlog that is variously put between $2 billion and $2.5 billion.
He said, “We have been working at the central bank with commercial banks on various structures to clear it. As a matter of fact, there’s a large amount of the obligations that the banks in Nigeria have already taken off.
“So what happened was at that maturity, they actually made the foreign exchange available for those who needed to use it, the importers and what have you. So we are discussing with them so that we can restructure their own.
“Some customers who still have their own obligations with their banks are being addressed by the banks and our structure with the banks in Nigeria was to clear that backlog. It is something we’ve been discussing for a while and we expect that we will clear it within the next one or two weeks”.
