Suspended banks meet CBN, seek truce

Nine banks banned this week from foreign exchange trading for failing to remit some oil money into a government account are holding talks with the Central Bank to seek a truce, operators said Thursday.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday suspended nine banks for withholding 2.12 billion dollars belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) contrary to a government regulation.


The administration of President Mohammadu Buhari, who took office in May last year, ordered all government revenues to be paid into Treasury Single Account (TSA) in the CBN to prevent fraud, and in his fight against corruption.

The United Bank for Africa (UBA), one of the suspended banks, said its ban had been lifted after it remitted $530 million.

Financial experts want the regulators to be lenient with the banks.

Currency traders said the naira depreciated further on the black market following the suspension, crossing the 400 mark to trade at 402 on Wednesday from 396 Tuesday.

The official rate is 305 to the dollar on the official inter-bank market.

The CBN floated the naira in June by scrapping the officially pegged rate of 197/199 which had caused forex shortages and currency woes in one of Africa’s largest crude producers.