On Tuesday, The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardo ,at thethe Monetary Policy Committee meeting of the apex bank, the first since he assumed office in September 2023, vowed to pursue an aggressive regulatory environment to reduce infractions in the country’s banking system.
He also stated that an in-depth investigation was underway to determine the necessary actions against banks involved in infractions, stressing that the bank was in the process of formulating “stringent regulations” to cleanse and purify the country’s foreign exchange market.
In responding to questions on steps taken to promote trading on the foreign exchange market, the governor revealed that its foreign reserves increased to $34bn as of February 20, up by $2bn from the $32.23bn recorded at the end of January. The naira has depreciated to an all-time low since the new administration floated the currency and unified the exchange rate windows.
The Nigerian currency weakened from over N700/$1 in May 2023 to over N1,500/$1 on Tuesday.
However, Cardoso said that the apex bank was moving to a “very aggressive regulatory environment”, adding that the CBN would do all within its powers to curb arbitrage aided by banks and BDCs.
He said, “What we are doing at the moment is a collaboration between the central bank and the law enforcement agencies to ensure that we can understand better what is going on in the market and where infractions are taking place. They will be speedily dealt with.
“Now, I must say that we are moving as far as the central bank is concerned, we are moving to a very aggressive regulatory environment, where those policies have been coming out, as you can see, and tolerance for people not to abide by the regulations that are coming out and to comply is zero.
“People will have to abide by those regulations, and those that do not will face the consequences. I can assure you that a very thorough exercise is going on to identify what needs to be done on banks aiding infractions. And once we come out with the outcome of those, it is not something that we will keep to ourselves. We will advise you accordingly and we will do what we have to do.”