{"id":28035,"date":"2016-08-25T03:14:25","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T03:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigeria-banks-banned-from-foreign-currency-deals\/"},"modified":"2016-08-25T03:14:10","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T03:14:10","slug":"nigeria-banks-banned-from-foreign-currency-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigeria-banks-banned-from-foreign-currency-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria banks banned from foreign currency deals"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Nine Nigerian banks have been suspended from foreign currency trading for not paying money owed to the government, a central bank source has told the BBC.
\nThe banks are said to be withholding a total of $2.1bn (\u00a31.6bn) belonging to the state-owned oil company.}<\/p>\n

Last year, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the merger of all state accounts into one single account at the central bank to reduce corruption.<\/p>\n

It is nearly a year since the deadline to transfer the money expired.<\/p>\n

The banks affected are: Diamond Bank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank, First City Monument Bank, Heritage Bank, Keystone Bank, Skye Bank, Sterling Bank and United Bank for Africa.<\/p>\n

{{Low oil price}}<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Naziru Mikailu in the capital, Abuja, says most commercial banks, especially smaller ones, have suffered as a result of the policy, as government agencies stopped depositing their money with them.<\/p>\n

Bank customers, especially those who import and export goods, will be affected by the ban as it means they will not be able to access their foreign currency accounts.<\/p>\n

The foreign currency trade ban is likely to have a major impact on the banks involved as it is believed some of them do not have the funds to hand over, a source at the Central Bank of Nigeria told the BBC.<\/p>\n

An official at one of the affected banks told the Reuters news agency the non-payment reflected the “dire macroeconomic situation”, rather than deliberate non-compliance.<\/p>\n

Nigeria has suffered severe economic problems because of the relatively low price of oil, which provides most of the country’s foreign currency earnings.<\/p>\n

The ban will be lifted individually as each bank transfers the money it owes. Each institution is also likely to face a further fine.<\/p>\n

The forex trading ban was triggered after the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) complained to President Buhari about the missing money, an NNPC spokesman told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Last year, President Buhari estimated government officials had stolen about $150bn in the previous decade.<\/p>\n

In the past it was easy for fraud to take place as the government did not know how many bank accounts each ministry held.<\/p>\n

\"Bank<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Nine Nigerian banks have been suspended from foreign currency trading for not paying money owed to the government, a central bank source has told the BBC. The banks are said to be withholding a total of $2.1bn (\u00a31.6bn) belonging to the state-owned oil company.} Last year, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the merger of all state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28035"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28035"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}