BVN: BDCs complain of inadequate registration time

The President, Association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) and Managing Director, Sabil BDC, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe has stated that the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that members of the association should enrol the customers for Bank Verification Number (BVN) within two weeks, would have negative impact on the foreign exchange market.

According to him, the time lag given to them was too short for them to be able to register their customers.

The value of naira continued to dwindle at the parallel market as it was sold for N245 for a dollar on the second working day after the Eid-El-Fitr holiday.

The previous day, the naira exchanged N243.50 against the dollar at the black market.

The nation’s currency was sold for N199.05/$1 at the interbank market yesterday.

A forex dealer, Mr. Emeka Iloputaife told Hallmark that the market remained volatile, but hoped that the naira may make some gains from today, because there would be more dollars in the market as BDCs received their $15,000 weekly allocation from the CBN yesterday.

The apex bank in a circular charged all licensed BDCs to ensure that every person that they transact forex business with have BVN with effect from August 1, 2015.

It also directed that for corporate customers, the BVN of a director or authorized signatory of the entity must be provided, which must be submitted with their returns.

The ABCON President argued that apart from the shortness of the time given to them, most members of the association lack knowledge of how to go about the BVN registration.

“We have written to the CBN telling them the challenges and implications and that they need look into the short time given to us, if not it is going to hurt the market instead of stabilizing it,” he said.

He also claimed that fraudsters may take advantage of the situation once they have access to people’s BVN.