Olufemi Adeyemi 

  • CBN is taking steps to alleviate foreign exchange pressure and address the unmet demand for foreign exchange from banking customers.
  • Distributes $876.26 Million to End-Users at N1,495 per Dollar.


The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has taken measures to alleviate pressure in the foreign exchange (FX) market by selling $876.26 million at a rate of N1,495 per dollar to address the unmet demand from banking customers.

Dr. Omolara Omotunde Duke, the Director of the Financial Markets Department at CBN, made this announcement in a statement titled “The Result of the Retail FX Sale to End Users through Retail Dutch Auction Undertaken by CBN on Tuesday, August 6, 2024.”

She explained that the CBN conducted the FX sale to end users via a Retail Dutch Auction System (rDAS) on August 6, 2024, with the aim of mitigating demand pressure in the FX market and facilitating price discovery.

Authorized Dealer Banks were instructed to submit a detailed template containing the Forms A and M for all outstanding trade-backed unmet FX demands from their customers via email on the same day, between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM.

These templates were secured with passwords, which were provided to the CBN after the bid submission deadline, allowing for the subsequent opening and compilation of the bids.

 All end users' accounts were to be credited with the naira equivalent of their bids by Wednesday, August 7, 2024.

The settlement for the successful bids is scheduled for T+2, which corresponds to Thursday, August 8, 2024. A total bid amounting to $1.18 billion was submitted by 32 Authorized Dealer Banks.

Out of these, bids totaling $876.26 million from 26 banks were deemed qualified, while bids amounting to $313.69 million from 6 banks were disqualified. Among the disqualified bids, 4 banks submitted their bids after the cutoff time of 3:00 PM, and 2 banks failed to use the required bid template.

All bids accompanied by Form Q, as well as those with unverifiable Form A and Form M on the Trade Portal, were disqualified.

In alignment with the Central Bank of Nigeria's objective to enhance foreign exchange liquidity in the market and facilitate price discovery, a cutoff rate of N1495/$ was approved for the Retail Dutch Auction, where bids totaling $876.26 million from 26 banks were qualified.

To promote transparency in the process, the total bids submitted by banks, along with all qualified bids for payment, will be made available on the Central Bank of Nigeria's website for public access.