CBN lifts restriction on foreign currency cash deposits

Posted by Felix Okoli on Wednesday January 13, 2016 at 9:50:34:

Nigerian bank customers can now deposit money directly to their domiciliary accounts after several weeks during which they were not allowed to do so by the Central bank of Nigeria.

In a bid to protect the value of the Naira and probably to discourage people from holding on to foreign currencies like the US dollar and Pounds, the CBN made a temporary rule that prevented banks fro maccepting cash deposits into domiciliary accounts and the only way through which customers were able to add credit to such accounts was through foreign transfers from abroad. It was a temporary rule which has now been stopped by the CBN.

Nigerians normally keep funds in foreign currency accounts for a variety of reasons such as for savings, to do foreign fund transfers or for funding card products. It is much easier doing international business if one has a foreign currency account and that's why importers normally have one and a good number of them normally fund it using currencies they've purchased from the black market and I guess that was one of the things killing the Naira.

Recently, however, the CBN has removed this restriction and rather placed a new rule that prevented banks from selling forex to Burea de Change (BDC) operators.

So, now you can start funding your domiciliary account with cash, cheque and foreign inflows if you have such an account.