Nigeria’s Central Bank denies the ban for banks to make payments in favor of crypto exchanges

The regulator’s fake order was circulated in the media on April 24

24.04.2024 - 14:16

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What’s new? The Central Bank of Nigeria has denied the information spread about the upcoming restrictions on a number of foreign centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs). Thus, on April 24, the media published the bank’s order, in which it allegedly demanded that financial institutions stop processing transfers to Binance, OKX, Bybit, and KuCoin platforms. Later, in the official X-account, the regulator said that the document was a fake and urged to refer to the official website for up-to-date information.

Источник: Twitter.com

What else is known? The circular, which the Central Bank called misleading, said it prohibited regulated financial institutions from facilitating payments in favor of crypto exchanges, contradicting an earlier order.

In December 2023, for instance, the regulator allowed banks to conduct transactions for digital asset trading platforms, reversing a corresponding ban that had been in place since 2021.

At the same time, in February this year, the media reported that Nigeria was preparing to ban crypto exchanges in order to stabilize the national currency. After that, at the request of the authorities, local telecommunications companies blocked the websites of a number of crypto exchanges, including Binance, OctaFX, and Coinbase.

Later, the country’s authorities accused Binance of tax evasion and destabilizing the exchange rate of the national currency, and detained its senior executives Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla. The latter escaped arrest in Kenya on a fake passport, but was soon detained and is now awaiting extradition.

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