ABUJA, AUGUST 22, 2018 – The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has asked banks to submit bids for the Chinese yuan in line with the regulator’s determination to meet foreign exchange demands at the retail end of the market.
The second auction of the Asian currency, which will likely take place this week, became exigent after the CBN agreed a swap with the People’s Bank of China in May.
The CBN sold 69.86 million yuan ($10.16 million) in its first auction of the Chinese currency two weeks ago.
The regulator bank, in July, launched the sale of foreign exchange in Chinese Yuan (CNY), signalling the consummation of the Nigeria-China Currency Swap Agreement.
Its acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said the sale would be done through a combination of Spot and Short Tenored Forwards, adding that the sale would be conducted through a Special Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) window.
“The CBN will also not be applying the guidelines, which provide that Spot FX sold to any particular end-user shall not exceed 1 per cent of the overall available funds on offer at each SMIS session.”
On the bid period, Okorafor said authorised dealers were requested to submit their customers’ bids from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on weekdays, adding that any bid received after the stipulated time would be disqualified.
On funding, he said authorised dealers were to debit the customers’ accounts for the Naira equivalent of their bids. He added that the CBN would debit authorised dealers’ current account on the day of intervention to the tune of the Naira equivalent of their bid request. Okorafor explained that there would be no predetermined spread on the sale of CNY by authorised dealers to end-users under the Special SMIS-Retail window. He said authorised dealers would, however, be allowed to earn 50 kobo on the customers’ bids.
He advised customers, who are not willing to accept the settlement terms not to participate in the Special SMIS – Retail, adding that Forward Bids would be settled through a multiple-price book building process and would cut-off at a marginal rate to be disclosed after the conclusion of the Special SMIS Retail process.
He also urged customers not willing to accept the terms of the forward rate not to participate in the Special Chinese Yuan SMIS Intervention.
According to Okorafor, the CBN reserved the right not to make a sale if it had the impression that the exercise did not provide effective price for the determination of the CNY to NGN exchange rate.
The Federal Government on April 27 signed a 2.5-billion-dollar Currency Swap Agreement with the People’s Bank of China. The primary aim is to provide adequate local currency liquidity to Nigerian and Chinese industrialists and assist both countries in their foreign exchange reserves management.
