The recently reviewed policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on remittances of foreign exchange (forex) back to Nigeria either to the beneficiaries directly through their International Money Transfer Operators (IMTO) or to their domiciliary accounts, kicks off today.
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, ruled out the possibility of the newly reviewed regime being susceptible to abuse of money laundry as being speculated in certain quarters. He assured Nigerians that proper safeguards have been put in place by the deposit money banks and the IMTOs.“The issue of money laundry in view of the new policy really does not arise because banks have their KYC and because over time we will try and encourage situations where funds are flowing into the domiciliary account of the recipient, I believe money laundry issues would have been totally dealt with,” Emefiele said at a briefing in Abuja after a meeting with the DMBs and the IMTOs on the new policy.

On the import of the new monetary policy action and how it will help the country in her forex earnings, Emefiele said: “If Nigeria is able to receive even if it is just $1billion monthly or moving close to $2billion monthly, I’m so certain you all know what will happen to exchange rate in Nigeria. I am also certain that after sometime, deposit money banks will not have any need to begin to call on the CBN to provide dollar to fund their commercial operation. That is why we are saying that we want to aggressively take on this and see how it will help our economy.

“As a matter of fact, from data that we have, the way the size of the remittance is computed by the IMF takes into consideration not just the monies that come in directly as flows but also what we call the earnings of Nigerians in diaspora in different parts of the world because they belief and we belief too that some portions of these monies actually flow back home to support members of their families.”

The CBN governor said the old remittances regime was changed because it was abused by some IMTOs.