The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has mandated all banks to disclose the identities of customers who try to contravene the regulations on Forex acquirement on their website.

On Monday, August 30th, the Central Bank issued a letter (BSD/DIR/PUB/LAB/14/059) to all banks stating that it has “received and noticed with worry complaints of sharp practices by some unscrupulous clients to bypass the new CBN policy on the selling of forex for foreign personal and business trips”.

According to the CBN, some of the illegal practices include: “the use of forged visas and the cancellation of airline tickets after the purchase of PTA/BTA.”

Director Banking Supervision Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Haruna B. Mustafa, signed the letter, stating that “this trend, if not curbed, portends risk to the integrity and stability of the forex market”.

The President ordered all banks “to publish on their websites the names and BVN of defaulting customers who present fake travel documents or cancel their tickets and fail to return the purchased PTA/BTA within two (weeks) as stipulated in the customer declaration form signed by them”, to mitigate this threat.

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Earlier before this decision was made, most banks had assured their customers letting them know their dedication to providing foreign exchange for their personal and business trips, and also payment for overseas education, medical, and other eligible hidden transactions.

The following are the rules that customers must fulfill before they can obtain foreign exchange, according to the bank:

The foreign exchange shall be sold only for legal travel purposes.

Customers of the bank are needed to present a valid Nigerian passport as well as a valid visa for travel to an international destination.

Only genuine travel papers, such as airline tickets to a foreign destination other than West Africa and Cameroon, will be accepted for this purpose.

The travel date for the international return ticket must be less than 14 days from the date of purchase of the PTA/BTA.