CBN confirms FX glut as banks pick up only 29% of $150m offered

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has confirmed excess availability of foreign exchange at the interbank market, as banks fail to fully subscribe to the $150 million offered by the apex bank.

Information from the apex Bank indicate that the dealers could only pick the sum of $43.5 million, which represents 29 percent of the $150 million offered for subscription in the wholesale segment of the foreign exchange market.

Confirming this development, Isaac Okorafor, the apex bank’s spokesman, reaffirmed the Bank’s position to sustain the intervention with a view to making foreign exchange available for all genuine transactions eligible for foreign exchange through the CBN window.

Okorafor also allayed the fear over the dwindling subscription by authorized dealers noting that the development merely goes to confirm the extent of liquidity in the foreign exchange market and the determination of the CBN to sustain the intervention aimed at ensuring stability in the market.

The banks inability to pick up forex is becoming a recurring decimal in recent time.

Meanwhile, the operators in the bureau de change segment of the market were also on hand on Thursday to pick the $20,000 offered to service the low end foreign exchange users.