By Amaka Ifeakandu
Lagos
The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has enjoined the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to harmonize all its various regulatory departments and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) to avoid multiple regulations.
A statement issued by the Association and signed by the ABCON Acting National President and Admin Officer, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe and Nmezi Godson Uche urged the apex bank to establish a single BDC directorate at the CBN to be in charge of the BDC sub-sector in order to enhance efficiency, productivity and transparency. This according to ABCON would engender proactive involvement of both the regulators and the BDCs for the growth and dynamism of the sector.
Expressing the need for the apex bank to introduce a new platforms that would be more convenient and office friendly to enable operators to use emails in the rendition of BDC returns to CBN, the association said that operators have been grappling with the problem of erratic network at the e-FASS platform around the country in the last couple of months.
The statement said that operator’s inability to operate e-FASS platform has hampered the rendition of BDC returns to the CBN and eventually many were recently penalized at the end of the day.
The association while expressing the need for the CBN to fulfill its promise of allowing the BDCs participate in the inward transfers like home remittances of Nigerians in Diaspora, it urged the apex bank to consider the introduction of dollar denominated cards and coupons to BDCs for retailing to the public.
ABCON in its statement called on the CBN to revisit their sales margin with a view to increasing it from the present 3.5 per cent to at least 8 per cent as obtains in other climes.
The association pleaded the apex bank to apply Treasury Bills interest rate on their N35 million mandatory cautionary deposit as against the present three per cent saving deposit interest rate.
Apart from urging CBN to come up with training and retraining of BDC operators they called the CBN to revisit the Self Regulatory Organisation (SRO) status of ABCON and also to explore further ways of enhancing collaboration with the Association.
