Ababa Ababa — The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) announced today that it has granted operational licenses to five non-bank Forex bureaus.
In a statement, the central bank disclosed that these five companies applied for licenses and fulfilled the minimum requirements set by the Bank per its Foreign Exchange Directive No. FXD/01/2024 will operate as Independent Foreign Exchange Bureaus.
Accordingly, the licensed Independent Foreign Exchange Bureaus are said to be Dugda Fidelity Investment PLC, Ethio Independent Foreign Exchange Bureau, Global Independent Foreign Exchange Bureau, Robust Independent Foreign Exchange Bureau, and Yoga Forex Bureau.
The forex bureaus are anticipated to play an important part in further developing and deepening Ethiopia's foreign exchange market through their role in the buying and selling of cash notes of major convertible currencies.
Foreign exchange bureaus are only authorized to engage in the buying and selling of cash notes and are not authorized to operate in other segments of the forex market (such as bank-based opening of Letters of Credit for export or import transactions), NBE indicated.
Moreover, the statement added they shall be involved in spot transactions only, with immediate delivery of currencies bought or sold.
Forex bureaus may purchase up to 10,000 USD of fx cash notes from a customer without a customs declaration and may purchase higher amounts for those presenting a customs declaration.
Forex bureaus may ALSO sell fx cash notes to travelers with supporting travel documents in the amount of up to 5,000 USD for personal travel and up to 10,000 USD for business travel.
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The operations of Forex bureaus will be strictly monitored and supervised by the NBE to ensure their adherence to the roles and responsibilities set out in NBE's Foreign Exchange Directive.
In particular, Forex bureaus need to fulfill a number of operational, security, reporting, and record-keeping requirements as specified by the NBE.
To ensure transparency for customers, forex bureaus are required to prominently display their buying and selling rates at their place of business. Customers are also entitled to be provided with receipts for all their cash note transactions.
The NBE welcomes this new chapter in the on-going liberalization of Ethiopia's financial sector and looks forward to the active growth and expansion of this segment of the foreign exchange market to help address the evolving needs of the Ethiopian economy.
