BDCs: 35,000 Nigerians may lose jobs – ABCON

The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has warned that more than 35,000 Nigerians risk losing their jobs if the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) goes ahead to implement the new capital requirements for BDCs in the country.

Rising from its emergency general meeting for the South West zone, held in Lagos, on Monday, the association feared that a lot of BDCs will close down because of huge, new financial requirement by CBN and the short time allowed for compliance.

Speaking through its acting president, Ahaji Aminu Gwadabe, the association warned that such policy might push the exchange rate to N250 to a dollar by the end of the year.

“More than 35,000 direct jobs would be lost. There are also indirect employees of this sector running into millions that will be affected,” Gwadabe said, stressing that massive retrenchment of staff would aggravate the severe unemployment in the country.

He explained that the association’s recent delegation to the CBN governor had argued against the necessity of N35 million as mandatory deposit, when BDCs are not deposit taking institutions, and operate on cash and carry basis.

“We also averred that the 250 percent increase in capital base and three weeks for compliance is unfair when compared with increase in capital requirements for other CBN regulated entities,” he said.

The CBN had raised minimum capital requirements for BDCs from $10million to $35million and another $35million mandatory deposit without interest. It fixed July 15, 2014 as deadline for compliance.

The bank cited certain reasons for this new move: depletion of the nation’s foreign reserves: dollarisation of the economy, money laundering, potential financing of unauthorized transactions with foreign exchange procured from the CBN window and ownership of multiple BDC licences.