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).
The CBN had on June 14 announced the unification of all segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market, and the Naira. Checks showed that on Friday, the dollar closed at N803.90 on the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window.
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
Recalled tha 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 the policy has brought on their businesses with many of them now jobless while a host of others fear they may soon go out of the business.
“Because the banks have no dollar with them, the demand is going high. People are coming every day. The banks are also in need of the dollar presently. Many of them are coming here to buy and settle their customers,” a major BDC operator in the popular Wapa BDC Market in Kano, Alhaji Yusuf Labahani Abdullahi, said.
This development, many BDC operators admitted, has knocked out round-tripping which had hitherto been the strength of the supply into the black market and a major boost for their business.