The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has authorised guidelines for Bureau De Change (BDC) operations across the country, while requesting that BDCs reapply for licencing online in accordance with the new regulatory standards within the next six months.
This was revealed in a new guideline for BDC activities signed by the bank’s Director Financial Policy and Regulation Department, Haruna.B. Mustafa.
Tier-1 BDCs must have a minimum capital base of N2 billion under the new regulatory criteria, previously Tier-1 was set at N500 million.
Furthermore, the bank set the application fee for Tier-1 license at N1 million and that of Tier-2 at N250 thousand. The licensing fee for Tier-1 and Tier-2 BDCs were set at N5 million and N2 million respectively.
The bank also asked BDCS to meet the requirements of the Tier of license they are applying for within the next six months.
It stated, “All existing BDCs shall: Re-apply for a new license according to any of the Tiers or license category of their choice as provided in the Guidelines.”
Meet the minimum capital requirements for the license category applied for within six (6) months from the effective date of the Guidelines.”
The new guidelines approved for Tier-1 BDCs allowed them to operate across the 36 states of the country and FCT and open franchises all over the country subject to the approval of the CBN.
Some of the new guidelines for BDCs going forward include; banning BDCs from futures, options and derivative trading, carrying out outward international transfer, receiving international inward transfers, dealing on crypto assets or entities that deal on crypto assets and others.
Conditions for the sale of BDCs
Furthermore, the bank listed the conditions for the sale of forex by BDCs to include the following;
- Personal Travel Allowance (PTA).
- Business Travel Allowance (BTA), provided that a person who receives BTA on behalf of a non-individual entity shall not be entitled to PTA for the same trip.
- Payment of overseas medical bills.
- Payment of school fees abroad.
- Payment of professional examination and annual subscription fees.
- Repurchase of unused Naira from a non-resident. For this purpose, repurchase shall only occur upon presentation of the receipt issued at the point of purchase of the Naira. The restriction in (c) below on cash payments shall not apply if the original transaction was a cash transaction.