The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has dismissed as fake a circular that claimed the bank had authorized the sale of foreign exchange to Bureau De Change (BDC) operators.
The circular, dated Tuesday, December 10, purported that the CBN had sold $20,000 to eligible BDC operators at a rate of N1,300 per dollar. It also stated that the CBN’s ongoing foreign exchange market reforms aimed to correct price distortions and address the widening exchange rate premium in the parallel market.
However, the CBN quickly refuted the claims. In a statement released via its official X (formerly Twitter) account on Wednesday, the apex bank clarified that it did not issue such a circular and labeled it as fake.
This clarification comes as the Naira has seen some improvement against the dollar in the past week following the CBN’s introduction of the Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS), designed to ensure more transparent foreign exchange transactions. While the Naira has faced some depreciation in the black market, where it recently weakened to N1660 per dollar, the currency strengthened at the official market, closing at N1,525 per dollar on Tuesday.
The last time the CBN intervened in the black market was in September 2024, when it sold foreign exchange to BDC operators at N1590 per dollar.
