Indications emerged weekend that many banks have not been able to pick up additional foreign exchange which the CBN has on offer. Many of the banks that had purchased foreign exchange earlier in the month could not provide the cash backing to pick up more foreign exchange from the CBN implying that their customers did not apply for foreign exchange.
Some Foreign Exchange traders told Businessnewsreport.com.ng that only ten banks were able to participate in the 30 days tenor foreign exchange offer while only six bid for the 60 days tenor.
The ten banks that bid for the 30days tenor got all they bid for and a total sum of $162.850million was allocated to them. Four out of the ten banks got $23 million each while three others were allocated $11.5 million each. A medium size bank applied on behalf of its customers and got the $7.6 million it applied for. The bank that got the least allocation in the 30 days tenor got $5.7 million.
Of the six banks that participated in the 60 days tenor bidding, one got $23 million, two $11.5 million each. According to market operators one of the participating bank got $5.7 million while another got $4.8 million. A development bank was allocated the sum of $1.953 billion. This brings the total allocation for the 60 days tenor to $58.521million.
Market sources are optimistic that if this trend continues, Nigerians who are hoarding foreign exchange will lose out heavily as the Central Bank is said ready to flood the foreign exchange market with dollars.
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