CBN predicts bad times for currency speculators

The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that currency speculators will get their fingers burnt very soon.

According to the bank, it will engage in a massive liquidity managment after the 2016 budget is passed that will live no room for the speculators to survive.

The regulator’s Deputy Governor, Financial Sector Stability, Dr. Okwu Joseph Nnanna, in Abuja on Thursday.

Nnana spoke at a joint Appropriation Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives, which met to harmonise views and to engage various organs of government on the 2016 Budget.

Also fielding questions from the members of the Committee, CBN's Deputy Governor, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, who represented the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, told the Committee that members of the public who are yet to obtain their Bank Verification Number still have opportunity to register to have access to their bank accounts.

Explaining the reason for the alleged high interest by commercial banks, Barau said that the level of inflation determines the level at which banks would set lending rates.

He noted that the practice all over the world remained that lending rate would always be set above the inflationary rate.

The apex bank, he said, had to embark on its real sector intervention programmes in order to accommodate marginal players such as the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as part of measures to grow the economy.