{"id":10647,"date":"2016-08-05T05:14:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T05:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=10647"},"modified":"2016-08-05T05:14:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T05:14:07","slug":"cbn-blocks-all-international-money-transfer-operators-except-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=10647","title":{"rendered":"CBN  blocks all international money transfer operators except three"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><code><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/code><\/p>\n<div class=\"el__leafmedia el__leafmedia--sourced-paragraph\">\n<p class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">The Central Bank of Nigeria has suddenly changed its policy toward money transfer operators, effectively blocking many services used by Nigerians to send money to and from the country excluding<a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/CBN.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8286\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8286\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/CBN.jpg\" alt=\"CBN\" width=\"232\" height=\"156\" \/><\/a> Western Union, MoneyGram and Ria<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">The decision to revoke the licenses of all but three money transfer companies was backed by a warning,issued on Tuesday, that advises Nigerians at home and abroad to &#8220;beware of the unwholesome activities of some unlicensed International Money Transfer Operators.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">Citing &#8220;the greater economic good of Nigeria,&#8221; the Central Bank stated that it will &#8220;not condone any attempt aimed at undermining the country&#8217;s foreign exchange regime.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\"><\/div>\n<p><code><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=9613&amp;ad_type=59&amp;rl=180\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/code><\/p>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">The sudden move has created immediate backlash because it affects a large volume of money. Remittances to Nigeria totaled about $20.8 billion in 2015, according to data from Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development.<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__read-all\">\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">WorldRemit is an online money transfer service that launched in Nigeria 2011 and one of the companies affected by the edict. It released a statement calling the new rules &#8220;draconian&#8221; and noted that the new policy would leave only three companies able to function: Western Union, MoneyGram and Ria. Those companies have physical operations on the ground in Nigeria.<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">&#8220;This move is arbitrary, inexplicable and hugely detrimental to the Nigerian diaspora, who rely on hundreds of money transfer companies and banks, providing them with choice, convenience and competitive pricing,&#8221; said WorldRemit founder and CEO Ismail Ahmed.<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">Ahmed said while Western Union used to control 78% of the transfers to Nigeria, now it controls less than 20%.<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">Ahmed, whose company says it sends 40,000 money transfers to Nigeria each month, also laments the lack of clarity surrounding the change.<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">&#8220;This is the first time in my 20 years of experience that a regulator is saying if you want to send money to Nigeria, you have to physically come to Nigeria and set up a company,&#8221; Ahmed said. &#8220;On Monday evening, Nigeria simply shut down transfers. The banks told us they couldn&#8217;t process our transfers. The country was one of the most competitive markets until Monday.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">He added, &#8220;This is extreme. It&#8217;s going to be quite explosive among the Nigerian diaspora.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">CNN has contacted the Central Bank but has not received a reply.<\/div>\n<div class=\"zn-body__paragraph\">CNN<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- www.deltanewsroom.com --><br \/>\n <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2163942495525027\" data-ad-slot=\"1411897411\" data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Central Bank of Nigeria has suddenly changed its policy toward money transfer operators, effectively blocking many services used by Nigerians to send money to and from the country excluding Western Union, MoneyGram and Ria The decision to revoke the licenses of all but three money transfer companies was backed by a warning,issued on Tuesday, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[371,2620,2619,2621],"class_list":["post-10647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-central-bank-of-nigeria","tag-moneygram","tag-western-union","tag-worldremit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/CBN.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-2LJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10648,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10647\/revisions\/10648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}