ABCON seeks BDCs digital autonomy for exchange rate convergence

 

The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has requested the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to grant Bureaux De Change (BDCs) digital autonomy to achieve exchange rate convergence.

In a report released on Monday, ABCON President, Dr. Aminu Gwadabe, called on the apex bank to grant a no objection approval for the BDCs to fully go digital on all their operational correspondences.

He said the approval would enhance exchange rate convergence, curb volatility in the market and promote economic growth.

According to him, ABCON had in the past, led its members to achieve rate convergence in 2006, 2009, 2018 to 2020 before the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020.

He said granting digital autonomy to the operators will lead to a true market rate discovery, enhance the achievement of the Federal Government harmonized foreign exchange rate policies and promote effective monitoring of BDCs transactions for statutory and regulatory requirement.

He stated: “As a proactive organisation and an umbrella body of Central Bank licensed BDCs and in line with the CBN planned reforms on BDCs for tech compliance, ABCON started various digitization reforms since 2016 to date for licensed operators.

“ABCON has invested several millions of naira in IT research, developments, designs, implementations of various layers of automation on business transformation from manual to digital. Our members now have transactions monitoring systems with installed IT office equipments and internet connections.

“Our members now record their transactions on Amazon Web Service (AWS) online real time and extract their daily reports for return rendition. Operators have also integrated with NIBSS, Bank Verification Number verification and validation platforms.”