Forex Crisis: Nigerian Banks Prevent Use Of Naira Cards Abroad

 An email sent recently by Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria to its customers has divulged plans by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop all foreign (non-Naira) transactions on Naira ATM, Debit and Credit cards effective January 1 2016.

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Literally, it means that if you travel abroad and try to use your card, it will not work, as customers will not be able to use their cards to buy products from foreign e-commerce sites like e-bay and amazon.com in which payments are made in forex.

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Sunday Punch reports that:

In a notice to its customers, Standard Chartered said, “This is to notify you that from January 1, 2016, your naira card will no longer be enabled for international use. This is as a result of the limited foreign exchange supply in the financial market.”
Asked how long the suspension of cards from international transactions would be, the spokesperson for Standard Chartered Nigeria, Mrs. Dayo Adurogbo, said, “We cannot give a definite date. It depends on how soon it is available. We will do everything to meet our customers’ demand once it is available.”
Further findings showed that a number of other banks had stopped customers from using their ATM cards abroad but had yet to officially communicate this to them.”

This is bad news for Nigerians living abroad as they will be unable to use their cards like they normally do in the past.

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However, a source at CBN says it is “a necessity”. The source explained that the fall in prices of crude oil, the main earner of foreign exchange for Nigeria, has made the nation’s forex income to reduce drastically, creating dollar scarcity crisis for the Apex Bank.