Can I Buy Dollars with Naira from CBN Directly ? See Answers below..
GoldenNewsNg gathered that Many people have been asking both online and offline about the possibility of them buying the United States dollar directly from the Central Bank of Nigeria. If you are one of those people, this article will help you greatly.
After reading this article, you’ll get answers to the below questions..
- How can I buy dollars directly from CBN?
- Can I buy dollars from the bank?
- Can I receive dollar in my Naira account?
How can I buy dollars directly from CBN?
As an individual, it is impossible to just walk into the Central Bank of Nigeria and buy the United States dollars. This is not permitted by the CBN’s present policy, it is only commercial banks and Bureau de Change operators that are allowed to buy dollars and other foreign currencies from the CBN.
So if you were planning to visit any of the CBN branches to buy the U.S. dollars, you will be disappointed because they will not sell it to you.
The CBN being the apex bank only regulate the activities of all Nigerian commercial banks, they do not serve individuals, this means that it is also not possible for an individual to own a bank account with the CBN.
One thing you should note is that the dollar rate at the CBN is entirely different from the parallel market, this means that the CBN foreign exchange rate is the cheapest in Nigeria.
Can I buy dollars from the bank?
Yes, you can buy the United States dollar from any of the commercial banks or operators of Bureau de Change. Before now, all registered and certified Bureau de Change operator were able to buy dollars directly from the CBN, sadly this has changed.
The CBN recently stopped the sale of forex to Bureau de Change operators. As it stands, you can only buy dollars from commercial banks in Nigeria.
The major reason that the CBN stopped the selling of dollars to the Bureau de Change operators was because of their quests for abnormal profits which made them sell dollars at very high rates at the expense of the stability of the naira.
The Nigerian currency was negatively affected by the greediness of some Bureau de Change operators who sold dollars at high rates just to make profits.
What this means is that only commercial banks are presently able to sell dollars at reasonable rates to individuals and companies. The commercial banks mainly sell dollars to individuals for the following purposes; payment of foreign medical bill, payment of school fees overseas, business travel allowance, and personal travel allowance.
Can I receive dollar in my Naira account?
You can not receive dollar in your naira account, the naira bank account is made only for transactions in the naira currency. If you want to receive dollars in Nigeria through your bank account, you have to open a dollar account also known as a domiciliary account. This is the only way you can receive dollars in your bank account in Nigeria.
Opening a dollar domiciliary account is the easiest way to receive US dollar in Nigeria. A US dollar account will enable you to receive bank transfers from abroad and you can withdraw your dollars by simply walking into any branch of your bank.
The requirements to open a dollar domiciliary account in any of the major banks in Nigeria are almost the same, find out your bank’s requirements and present the needed documents to enable you open the dollar account.
You can now send your account number, sort code, and bank name to whoever wants to send you the dollars from overseas.
