The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), yesterday announced new measures to tackle money laundering and also suspended the Wholesale Dutch Auction System (WDAS). The apex bank suspects that the money laundering might be linked to early political campaigning for 2015 elections and thus putting pressure on the naira.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it will start applying charges on withdrawals and deposits above N500,000 for individuals and N2 million for corporate bodies from Oct. 2.

•Say it will affect market performance in 2nd half…
The positive sentiment at the Nigerian stock market at the beginning of the year has continued to impact on performance of the market which has recorded a 26 per cent growth in the last eight months. The market indicators, which are the barometer of the health of the financial market, as at the end of third quarter of 2013 showed that share prices of most of the companies listed in the exchange have risen by 26.6 per cent.

It is bad enough to ever be in a position where one borrows one’s money back, but for our Central Bank to have done so for so many years at rates of between 13 and 14 per cent, as admitted recently by Governor Lamido Sanusi, can at best be described as an unfortunate moral hazard, which may border on economic sabotage.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, said that deposits from some government institutions are excluded from the reporting of public sector deposits in line with its circular to banks operating in the country.