ABCON to launch naijabdcs.com live rate portal

The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria said it had concluded all arrangements to launch www.naijabdcs.com, a live rate engine room created by the ABCON to promote transparency and price discovery in the foreign exchange market.
President, ABCON, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, said, during a press conference in Lagos on Wednesday that the group had secured the Central Bank of Nigeria’s no-objection approval on the engine room.
The approval, he said, reaffirmed the regulator’s commitment to a transparent and viable forex market, where stakeholders’ interests were protected.
Gwadabe said the world had been going digital, and Bureaux De Change operators under his leadership were committed to staying ahead of the competition by deploying time-tested technology to deliver effective services to their numerous customers.
He said the objective was to make www.naijabdcs.com a household name in financial reporting and coverage, as well as a first choice for investors and tourists in accessing quality and reliable information on forex market and rates.
According to him, the new engine room will sustain transparent transactions in the BDC corridor, boost the morale of its members and ensure their continuous operations.
The ABCON chief said the group had fully upgraded its Information Communication and Technology platforms to achieve full digitisation of BDCs’ operations in line with its goal of sustaining transparent operation and prompt rendition of weekly returns to operators.
He said the www.naijabdcs.com would serve as a reliable platform for local and international investors, who would rely on it to access uniform forex rate across states, regions and markets nationally. He said the Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and Onitsha markets always had different forex rates, which would be captured by the live-rate engine at all times.
“The new live rate engine will provide buying and selling rates across different cities and also average national rate for the country. All the CBN-approved BDCs will key into this revolution meant to transform the forex market, and keep speculators out of the market,” he said.
The ABCON boss also said the portal would contain BDCs location, and their numbers, thereby giving forex buyers direct access to genuine operators to reinforce operator-customer confidence in the market.
He said the live-rate engine would also serve as an information site, where investors and the general public would rely on to get and read reliable and timely financial market reports.
Gwadabe said that in the era of “fake news”, financial journalists would find the engine room the first point of call in sourcing for data on the forex market and rates, adding that ABCON was working with the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System to ensure that BDC operations and their systems remained transparent.