Nigerians looking to travel abroad can purchase dollars as personal or business travel allowances via their commercial banks.
This is contained in a circular issued by the central bank of Nigeria reminding customers that forex purchase for holiday purposes is still possible.
Unbeknownst to some Nigerians, the travel allowance related purchases are still possible even as the central bank introduced the new foreign exchange market guidelines.
According to the CBN, bank customers looking to purchase forex via PTA/BTA can meet their banks and that all eligible transactions still as to be at the market determined rate.
The market determined rate is the official rate that forex is being sold at the Nigerian foreign exchange market and may not be the same as the closing rate, intra-day high or intra-day low rates.
For example a buyer may get a rate of N1530/$1 and another N1530.5/$1 depending on the time the bid was placed and the transaction consummated.
Information reaching Naijaonpoint suggest most Nigerians seeking forex as travel allowances may not be aware that they can still do so via their commercial bank.
Most of them attribute this to the ease of accessing forex in the parallel market where documentations are not required.
In a circular recently issued by the central bank, Bureau de Change (BDC) operators were granted “temporary permission” to purchase up to $25,000 weekly in foreign exchange (FX) from the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM).