CBN revokes licences of close to 3,000 BDCs in one year

An updated list of authorised Bureau de Change dealers in Nigeria has been made available by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The apex bank’s list indicates that there are now 2,991 authorised BDC operators in total.

NRTC was able to obtain a document titled “Approved BDCs” that listed 2,698 BDCs as having had their licences revoked.

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Similar information was published by the Central Bank in a document named “List of CBN licenced Bureaux De Change as at December 31, 2021” in 2022. At that time, the CBN had authorised 5,689 dealers.

The operators had grown from 74 in 2005 to 5,689 in 2021.

The number of BDCs grew by more than 100 per cent under the former CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who banned the sale of foreign exchange to BDCs over round tripping and involvement in illegal financial flows.

Under the new administration, a document titled ‘Policy advisory council report: National economy sub-committee’, advised an implementation of key reforms like raising the capitalisation for BDC operators.

Another suggestion by the council was that the CBN should allow the Nigerian banks to operate as the primary dealers to supply the forex market.