BDC Operators In Lagos Record Boom, Experience Low Sale In Abuja, Kano

Bureau de Change (BDC) operators in Lagos, Abuja and Kano have been experiencing mixed fortunes owing to the recent forex unification policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Naija News learned that the dollar closed at N803.90 on the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window after the CBN announced the unification of all segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market and the Naira.

At the parallel market, it was exchanged for between N825 and N830 in Lagos on Saturday. In Abuja, it was sold between N810 and N812, while in Kano, it was exchanged for N820 at the weekend.

Nigerians in need of Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) and Business Travel Allowance (BTA) usually access forex from the CBN at the official rate through their commercial banks, which allows travellers access to cheaper foreign currencies for travel.

While the BDC operators in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial centre, have acknowledged a boom in their operations, their counterparts in the Federal Capital City of Abuja and those in Kano, the northern Nigeria commercial nerve centre, have continued to lament the negative impact of the policy on their businesses.

Lagos BDCs Record Boom

In Lagos, BDC operators have been recording booming over the scarcity of the USD. It was gathered that the dollar sold between N825 and N830 in parts of Lagos on Saturday, especially at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) when our correspondent checked.

By implication, the unification of the exchange rate has not eased the demand for dollars as it continued to increase because of high demand.

A BDC Operator at the MMIA, Ubada Usman, in a chat with Daily Trust, said the high demand for the dollar has been pushing up the price despite the unification.

“I am telling you if the CBN pumps dollars into commercial banks today, the price will go down, but in a situation where the banks don’t have the dollars to give, the BDCs remain the alternative,” he said.

Another operator who simply identified himself as Hassan and operated within the premises of MMIA said, “Since the CBN introduced this new policy of dollar unification and other initiatives, the foreign currency has been very scarce. You can’t get it anywhere. People are looking for dollars up and down, and they cannot get them. This is why it is going up.”

Also, our correspondent observed a beehive of activities at Allen Avenue in Ikeja, a major BDC hub in Lagos. One of the operators, Nasiru Abdullahi, said nothing has changed and that the cost of getting dollars remained on the increase despite the CBN policy.

Kano, Abuja Record Low Sale

In Kano, since the new policy by the CBN, operators in the popular Wapa BDC market have been battling with the scarcity of the forex as fewer people now come to the market to sell or buy.

In a chat wh the newspaper, Nura Usman, an operator in Fagge market, said since the new policy, they have not had access to forex from commercial banks.

Usman lamented that the situation has rendered many of them jobless with nothing to feed their families.

He said: “In this market, we have many people, including the poor, who get what to eat only when the dollar is available.

“Many of them and other medium business owners are suffering while the rich ones are living off their capital. It has affected everything.”

Usman said the only way out of the problem is for the government to reverse the policy and return issuing dollars directly from the CBN to the BDC operators.

Similarly, the chairman of the BDC market, Sani Salisu Dada, said the market largely relied on marketers and travellers trading in USD and other forex and that since declaring that the dollar is open to price itself, his people have no access to it.

Abuja BDCs Grumble

Like their counterparts in Kano, BDC operators in Abuja are also expressing displeasure over the low patronage the forex unification policy has subjected them to.

A visit to the popular Sheraton Street at Wuse Zone 4 by Daily Trust confirmed that the BDCs had been hit by low patronage.

Speaking to Daily Trust, an operator in the capital city, Ahmed Sabitu, said USD currently fluctuates between N800 and N860 at the black market.

“Because the difference is very small, sometimes N20, people will prefer to go to the bank. Sometimes in a whole day, only one customer will come, unlike before when we had over 20 people coming to do transactions in a day,” he said.

Another operator, Shafiu Musa, said they believe the new forex policy by the CBN was only targeted at ruining the business of BDC operators and that it will not have any economic impact.

Also speaking, another BDC operator, Aliyu Bello, told Daily Trust that market forces were now the sole determinants of the sale of USD. He added that people have lost appetite for coming to BDC operators, which may lead to many of them (BDCs) abandoning the business.