In compliance with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) foreign exchange policy, Access Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, and seven other banks have published names, Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) and account numbers of their customers who have accessed foreign exchange under false pretence and failed to return it despite reaching out to them with phone calls and messages.
BigNaira gathered that a total of 1,235 foreign exchange (FX) defaulters were published by ten Nigerian banks based on the regulatory directives by the apex bank.
The commercial banks in question, published these names on their respective websites on February 18, 2022 which BigNaira has summarised in the table below:
| Bank Name | No. FX of Defaulters |
|---|---|
| Zenith Bank Plc | 987 |
| Fidelity Bank Plc | 83 |
| Sterling Bank Plc | 66 |
| Polaris Bank | 40 |
| Access Bank Plc | 24 |
| Stanbic IBTC Bank | 19 |
| FCMB | 8 |
| Standard Chartered Bank | 4 |
| UBA | 3 |
| Wema Bank | 1 |
| 1,235 |
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in July instructed Deposit Money Banks (DMB) to publish names and Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) of customers who violated its Personal and Business Travel Allowance rules.
PTA/BTA is a foreign currency product that ensures customers who are travelling out of the country on personal or business trips have access to foreign currency at approved CBN rates.
The rates from the banks could be as low as N412/$ compared to N560/$ at the black market.
To stop Nigerians from cheating the system, CBN instructed that customers must return the purchased PTA/BTA within two weeks if travel plans were cancelled or risk getting their accounts blacklisted, and names published.