As the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continues with its rationing of the greenback, bank returns on foreign exchange utilization bought from the central bank and compiled have shown that it allocated $921,352,549 to 17 commercial banks in the country in March in order to meet the foreign exchange demand of their customers.

The computation, however, did not capture total returns of all commercial and merchant banks in country, as their reports were not made available.

It was sufficient, nonetheless, to show that actual demand for forex stood at almost $9.21 billion during the month, given that the CBN only manages to meet 10 per cent of banks’ demand for forex.

A top bank official explained that the returns were not in any way reflective of total demand by the banks on behalf of their customers, saying that what the central bank was trying to address were the backlog of forex demand.

“On average, our returns or allocations are just about 10 per cent of total demand, which means that the CBN is unable to meet forex demand on the official market.

“It is for this reason there is so much pressure on the parallel market, where businesses that are unable to get their forex requirements met through the official window turn to,” a bank CEO had explained.

Forex allocations in the month of March ranged from fuel, machinery and pharmaceuticals imports, all the way down to school fees and personal travelling allowances.

Allocations for the payment of tuition fees overseas were the most numerous items. Also, other invisibles such as business and personal travel allowances, repatriation of capital, and divestments by foreign portfolio investors from the equities and bond markets accounted for a large chunk of forex purchases, in terms of volume.

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