CBN Renews Hope on Funding of Legitimate Forex Demand

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reassured stakeholders in the foreign exchange market that it will continue to fund legitimate demand for foreign currencies at its official window.

The apex bank gave the assurance, while briefing journalists at the end of the Bankers Committee meeting, in Lagos.

Hafeez Omar, managing director of Citi Bank, who made the disclosure on behalf of the Committee, as part of the far reaching decisions of the meeting, pointed out that CBN Governor assured the market that all genuine demand for forex would be met.

He also reiterated that the state of the reserves remained resilient, while the central bank wants to assure all stakeholders that there is no reason to panic in the market.

Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, director of Banking Supervision, also allayed fears on the state of the nation’s economy and that despite all the headwinds- global and domestic, the banking industry remained safe, sound and resilient.

 According to her, the banking sector has shown resilience in terms of capital adequacy level, liquidity, profitability and asset quality.

She pointed out that industry-wide, all the banks on average were above the regulatory minimum, hence could be declared safe, sound and resilient.

She also assured that banks have no much concerns over its exposures in oil sector, as there have been rebounds in the oil sector for the past two weeks, noting that the capital level of Nigerian banks is enough to accommodate the vagaries.

Ladi Balogun, managing director of First City Monument Bank,  however, highlighted the positive trend in the nation’s non-oil revenue growth in recent times.

According to him, while it has been widely reported that there is drop in the fiscal revenue, it was also noted that there was over N75 billion recorded in non-oil revenue in the same period, with expectations this year that it would increase to over N150 billion.

“The good news about that is that while there might be some structural challenges historically, the trend is very positive in terms of diversification of the economy and certainly, the banking industry will continue to play its role in supporting that diversification, with the variety of things going on in the Small and Medium Enterprises’ space, agriculture and others.

“So, we feel that these challenges are temporary and with what we have seen in non-oil revenue and the support that the banking industry is committed to giving to the real sector, we would surely come out stronger,” he said.