Forex transactions in banks to be published, as naira sheds N4.5

In another attempt at firming up the local currency, the naira, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered banks to record and publish details of all foreign exchange transactions in their halls.

The apex bank instructed the banks to ensure compliance by having such transactions published on its platform, the Financial Market Dealers Quote (FMDQ) as soon as possible.

Godwin Emefiele, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said this was to be put in place as part of the bank’s interventions to reduce abuse in the system.

“The CBN is very interested in credible price formation for the foreign-exchange market. It is also imperative for price discovery and liquidity assessment of our market, which are key to activate foreign portfolio investment flows,” he stated.

From the directive, banks are now to publish all the so-called “off-line trades” on its trading system “within 30 minutes of execution of such transactions,” according to a separate e-mail sent to dealers by FMDQ on the same day

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Before now, commercial banks were capturing only big-term transactions they executed for corporate bodies, which they periodically furnish CBN with.

But the government bank said yesterday that with the ban lifted on lodgment of foreign currencies on domiciliary accounts by bank customers, there is the need to beam more searchlights on the system.

However, the naira has continued to shed weight in comparison to other currencies having depreciated by 1.5 percent (N4.5) at the interbank foreign exchange market on Monday.

At the end of transactions on Friday, it exchanged for N305.25 per dollar.

As was the case at the beginning of last week, panic took over at the spot transactions with N309.84 being exchanged per dollar at the close of business, yesterday.

But at the parallel market, the naira remained relatively stable as the market rate stood at N376 per dollar.

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