The Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced “Form X” for the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises seeking to purchase foreign exchange from the apex bank.
The CBN said the decision was part of its commitment to increase forex liquidity and improve access by the SMEs and retail businesses to forex.
The Acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, who confirmed this on Monday, said that the measure was intended to ease documentation challenges usually encountered by this category of businesses.
He further explained that the new form, which must be completed by all the SME applicants required the applicant to fill the form with a supporting application letter as well as beneficiary invoice and bank wire transfer.
The objective of the new guideline, he added, was to remove obstacles usually encountered by those whose forex needs for either visibles or invisibles were as small as or less than $10,000.
He reiterated the apex bank’s determination to continue to ensure adequate supply of forex for genuine transactions in the coming days.
The introduction of the ‘’Form X” was coming barely one week after the CBN opened a special forex window for the SMEs.
Meanwhile, the naira closed at 410/dollar on the parallel market on Monday, the last day of the Easter holidays.
Despite the series of dollar supplies into the various segments of the forex market by the central bank, the naira had closed at 410 against the United States dollar from Friday to Sunday, fuelling concerns about the CBN dollar interventions.
Earlier, the local unit had also closed at 410/dollar consecutively from last Tuesday to last Thursday.
Deposit Money Banks lacked naira liquidity to bid for the $100m offered for sale by the CBN last Thursday.
Banks were unable to buy over $39m out of the $100m offered for bid by the apex bank.
The CBN is reportedly planning to raise dollar sales to the BDCs to $40,000 from the present $20,000, which will improve liquidity and help support the local currency.
