- Travelex, ABCON Partner to Access $20bn Diaspora Remittances
Travelex Nigeria and the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria have agreed to enter into strategic partnership that will enable the Bureaux de Change access over $20bn annual diaspora remittances into Nigeria.
The President, ABCON, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, disclosed this at a one-day sensitisation programme organised for BDCs by Travelex Nigeria and Travelex UK in Abuja, while speaking on the theme, ‘ABCON’s plans and proposals for strengthening and improving the foreign exchange market viz-a -viz the BDC sub-sector in the economy.’
He said Travelex and ABCON were reviewing the possibility of ABCON riding on the Travelex high-tech for BDCs to become direct agents of the International Money Transfer Operators.
Gwadabe said the digitisation of the BDCs operations through the launch of ABCON Live Run Automation Portal which had the backing of the Central Bank of Nigeria showed the BDCs’ readiness and commitment to full digitisation of their operations to provide seamless services to forex end-users and become direct agents of IMTOs.
He added that the CBN captured only six per cent of the Diaspora remittances and the rest went under the counter without any tracing.
The ABCON boss noted that riding on the Travelex high-tech would enable the BDCs address the reoccurring complaints of poor infrastructure which had kept the operators away from accessing the Diaspora remittances for years.
Gwadabe, said the BDC operators were obligated by law to render daily, monthly and annual returns to the CBN.
He said the daily returns known as Daily Transaction Returns gave details of the total sales made for the day by the BDC and came in as DTR 202, DTR 217, DTR 305 and DTR 315.
He said, “The DTR 217 return gives the information about the customers of whom the forex was sold to. Information like, the name, the international passport number, Bank Verification Number, address, Tin number, email address among others, while DTR 305 provides details of the customers as well their destination and reason for the purchase of forex. The total amount of forex sold to them is also mentioned with the transaction date.”
According to Gwadabe, DTR 315 tells BDCs’ opening balance, amount purchased in forex, the equivalent in naira and the rate of purchase, amount sold in forex, the equivalent in naira and the selling rate as well as the closing balance.