By Sahabi Abdul
U.S. payments giant PayPal and local counterparts including Interswitch, Etranzact and Flutterwave are among 47 companies authorized to undertake international money transfers.
The list of licensed money transfer providers, published today by the Central Bank of Nigeria also includes traditional money-transfer companies such as Western Union, Moneygram, Worldrenit and Ria Financial. Also included are the Nigerian Postal Service as well the Paga payments service.
The CBN has been pushing to increase to volume of remittances by Nigeria’s diaspora community through official channels by insisting that recipients be paid in hard currency.
It’s part of a strategy to boost the inflow of hard currencies into Nigeria and reduce the foreign-exchange pressure occasioned by the sharp drop in receipts from the country.
The central bank expects that the value diaspora remittances into Nigeria could reach $34 billion from about $24 billion the previous year.