Olusola Bello
The CBN has issued a circular (BSD/DIR/PUB/LAB/14/059) to all banks lamenting that it has “received and noted with concern reports of sharp practices by some unscrupulous customers to circumvent the new CBN policy on the sale of forex for overseas personal and business travel”.
Some of the unwholesome practices, the CBN said: “include the use of fake visas and cancellation of air tickets after purchase of PTA/BTA”.
Haruna B. Mustafa Director Banking Supervision Department of the CBN, who signed the circular, noted: “this trend, if not curbed, portends risk to the integrity and stability of the forex market”.
To curb this threat, he ordered all banks “to publish on their websites the names and BVN of defaulting customers who present fake travel documents or cancel their tickets and fail to return the purchased PTA/BTA within two (weeks) as stipulated in the customer declaration form signed by them”.
Prior to this order, most banks had written to their customers of their commitment to provide customers with foreign exchange for their Personal and Business Travel as well as payment for overseas Education, Medical and other eligible invisible transactions.
The rules that customers have to follow before they can access forex the bank said are: FX shall be sold for Legitimate Travel Purpose Only.
Bank customers are required to provide a valid Nigerian passport and a valid visa to an international destination.
Only valid travel documents like tickets to an international destination outside of West Africa and Cameroon will be accepted.
