The Central Bank of Nigeria has made a U-turn as it lifted the ban it placed on United Bank for Africa (UBA) from accessing the foreign exchange market following accusations that it had breached provisions of the TSA. Here is the content of the circular:
[alert-note]United Bank for Africa (UBA) re-admitted into FOREX Market
Further to the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to return all outstanding unremitted NNPC/NLNG foreign currency, this is to confirm that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has remitted all outstanding NNPC/NLNG deposits in its possession to NNPC’s Treasury Single Account (TSA) at the CBN.
Accordingly, the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has been re- admitted into the Foreign Exchange Market effective Thursday, August 25, 2016[/alert-note]
With the readmission of UBA, eight banks remain banned and it is unclear if this is because they have not all remitted all outstanding balances from the NNPC/NLNG dividends or if the banning of UBA was in error in the first place. The Naira depreciated to its lowest in over 6 months when it crashed to N402. Some analysts had placed part of the blame for the huge drop on the sudden ban of the nine banks believing that this had caused a shock in the supply chain of forex.
Get the circular below;
