By As part of efforts to stop black market trading of dollars legitimately acquired at Bank rate for Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) and Business Travel Allowance (BTA) from commercial banks, the Bankers’ Committee as mandated banks to issue travel debit cards as they commence card-based dollar disbursements.
The policy shift, announced by many banks including UBA, FirstBank and Access Bank, followed rising cases of abuse by travelers who get forex but fail to use it for trip-related purposes or turnaround to trade the funds at black markets.
The new process of using digital processes to track forex transactions is believed to stop fraudsters from abusing the system, and save scarce forex for the economy.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines require that a company can buy up to $5,000 BTA per quarter while an individual is entitled to $4,000 PTA per quarter.
