Nume Ekeghe
Deposit Money banks have reduced customers’ access to personal travel allowance (PTA) and business travel allowance (BTA) from $4000 quarterly to $2000 twice a year.
So far, only Access Bank Plc has sent a communication to its customers, however, it was learnt that four other banks are planning do the same rationing.
Access Bank in a statement to its customers stated: “We value your relationship with us and would like to keep you informed on updates regarding our fulfillment of Form A requests. PTA / BTA requests are now processed a maximum of twice annually per applicant to the tune of $2,000 per application where the request is within 14 days of the travel date. International school fees and Upkeep requests are processed within 120 days from the date of approval.
“All applications are processed and disbursed subject to FX availability, proper documentation, and provided the account to be debited is sufficiently funded to cover the Form A charge and other processing fees.”
It added that customers should ensure their account is sufficiently funded to accommodate the value of the transaction and charges at the time of processing, “as any request not backed with an adequately funded account or the required documentation will be rejected and considered a new request upon re-submission. Updates on pending, approved or rejected Form A requests are duly posted and accessible on the Trade Monitoring System portal.”
Meanwhile, commenting on the performance of the naira last week, analysts at Cowry Assets Management noted: “In the just concluded week at the open market, the local currency edged the United States dollar as it appreciated by N6.00 or 0.79% week on week to close at N752/USD from N758/USD in the previous week even as dollar demand took a calm in the face of scarcity crunch. Also, at the investors’ and exporters’ FX window, the Naira appreciated slightly 0.05% week on week to close at N461.50/USD from N461.75/USD despite the growing FX demand pressure on the naira.
“A look at activities at the Interbank Foreign Exchange Forward Contracts market, the spot exchange rate remained unchanged and closed at N462/$. Also, in our analysis of the Naira/USD exchange rate in the weekly Naira FX Forward Contracts Markets, it was all green for the Nigerian Naira index across all forward contracts with appreciations reported for the 1-Month, 2-Month, 3-Month, 6-Month and 12-Month tenor contracts against the greenback by +0.11 per cent, +0.48 per cent, +0.82 per cent,
+0.63 per cent and +0.10 per cent week on week to close at contract offer prices of N466.68/$, N473.97/$, N482.13/$, N508.90/$ and N542.79/USD respectively.”
