The naira continued its downward trend after exchanging at 980 to the dollar at the parallel market on Wednesday.
A week earlier, the naira exchanged for the dollar at N950/$.
Bureau de Change operators who spoke with The PUNCH attributed the fall to scarcity of foreign exchange.
A BDC operator, Idris Musa, said, “We bought and sold the naira at 965/$ and 980/$ today. The dollar is not even available.
Another BDC operator, Yusuf Kareem, said: “The dollar was selling at 980 today. We don’t know if it will continue to rise or if it can come down.
However, on the FMDQ at the Investor & Exporter forex window, the naira appreciated slightly after closing at 770.71/$ on Wednesday from 776.76/$ on Tuesday.
The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria recently called on the Central Bank of Nigeria to grant bureaux de change operators digital autonomy in order to achieve exchange rate convergence.
In a statement, the President of ABCON, Dr Aminu Gwadabe, urged the apex bank to give a no-objection approval for BDCs to go fully digital in all their operational correspondences.
Gwadabe said foreign exchange by BDCs was sourced from private sources and other sources which may include the CBN window as determined by the CBN at any time for the purpose of funding business travel allowance, personal travel allowance, payment of school fees abroad, medical, mortgage, personal home remittances and subscriptions.
He said ABCON had trained compliance officers to ensure that they knew what was expected of them, especially on monthly submission of results and tracking of illicit capital flows through compliance.
According to Gwadabe, the BDCs were complying with the submission of suspicious transaction reports as directed by the NFIU, CBN and EFCC.
He said the BDCs were required to comply with all extant rules and regulations prescribed by the CBN, while the CBN closely supervised and monitored their operations.
