The international spending limit in Nigeria has now become a thug of war. We posted recently how UBA and union bank revised their international spending limits to 20$ monthly.
Ever since, more banks have started joining the trend of reducing their international spending limits to 20$ monthly.
What you should know!!
On Feb 11 2022, the CBN indicated at the 364th banker’s committee meeting that it would discontinue the sale of foreign exchange to the commercial bank by the end of the year.
Emefiele said, “The era is coming to an end when, because your customers need 100million dollars in foreign exchange or 200 million dollars, you now want to pack all the dollars and pass it to CBN to give you dollars.
“It is coming to an end before or by the end of this year. We will tell them don’t come to the Central Bank for foreign exchange again go and generate their export proceeds.
“When those export proceeds come, we will fund them at 5% for you and they will earn rebait. Then you can sell those proceeds to your customers that want 100 million dollars. But to say you will continue to come to the Central Bank to give you dollars, we will stop it.
It’s so surprising if CBN has stopped selling FX to banks early as the majority of them have reduced their international spending limits.
Below is a list of banks that adjusted their spending limits to between $0 to $50 monthly.
| Limits | Bank |
| $20 | Gtbank |
| $50 | Stanbic |
| $20 | Wema |
| $20 | FCMB |
| $20 | Firstbank |
| $20 | Union Bank |
| $20 | UBA |
| $20 | Zenith |
| $0 | Polaris |
All banks claim their customers should visit their nearest branch to get a dollar-denominated card.
But the question is; will the bank sell dollars above their current spending limits and will it be the official rate or the Black market’s rate?
If the reverse is the case, then we can confidently buy dollars at the black market on barter or chippercash virtual cards for international usage instead of getting a dollar card from the bank, and still source for dollar to fund into the dollar account.
