Central bank rationing dollar supply to ease reserves pressure Payment delay may create dollar shortage for domestic lenders
Nigeria’s central bank may delay repayments of foreign exchange to domestic lenders as an acute shortage of dollars in Africa’s largest economy forces the regulator to ration hard currency, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
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Rated commercial lenders in the West African nation have placed about $10.4 billion with the central bank in the form of derivative transactions including swaps and forwards, Moody’s analysts including Mik Kabeya and Lynn Merhi said in a report on Thursday. Because of the shortage of foreign currency, there’s a risk the central bank may temporarily prolong those contracts beyond their original maturity date, they said.
