CBN to Refund Minimum Capital Deposits and Licensing Fees to BDC Promoters

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released a circular stating that it will start an immediate refund of capital deposit to Bureaux de Change (BDC) promoters with pending applications.

According to the circular, this is in furtherance of the decision to discontinue allocation of Foreign Exchange (FX) to BDC operators.

The CBN urged eligible promoters of BDCs to forward their application for refund in writing to the Director, Financial Policy and Regulation Department of the CBN.

“The requests should be accompanied with the following documents:

“Telex copy of the capital deposit of N35 million; account details for the refund, which should be the same as the account from which the capital deposit originated, including the Bank name, account name and account number.

“Copy of the bank draft/telex for payment of licensing fee of NI million (if any),” he said.

The CBN advised eligible applicants to submit hardcopies of their requests to its Head Office, Central in Abuja or the Annex in Lagos, while urging commercial banks to stop processing payments for their customers.

“Softcopy of the request in above may be sent in advance of the hard copy to fprdlicensinq@cbn.gov.ng.

“In addition, all Deposit Money Banks are hereby directed to henceforth stop accepting instructions from customers to transfer capital deposit of N35 million to the designated CBN account for the purpose of applying for BDC licences,” he said.