BNA hands over responsibility for foreign exchange trading to commercial banks

As of 1 October, the National Bank of Angola (BNA) will no longer make direct sales of foreign currency and institutions authorised by the central bank will take on this role, it was announced today.

After 1 October, the BNA will no longer make direct sales of foreign currency, which means that “requests to buy foreign currency must once again only be submitted to financial institutions authorised to carry out foreign exchange trade.

In a statement published on its official website, the BNA justifies this measure by noting that the period in which the current method of selling foreign currency on the primary market with a controlled exchange rate and with an indication of the destination of the funds made available was in force has made it possible to realise that “the conditions have been created to give commercial banks back their autonomy in allocating foreign currency to their clients”.

The BNA recalls that “as part of the normalisation of the functioning of the foreign exchange market, it recently resumed the sale of foreign currency at foreign exchange auctions without specific indication of the operations or importers for which the funds should be sold by the commercial banks”.

This “adjusted system of direct sales” led the BNA to understand the “methodology needed to protect international reserves and issue regulations and guidelines to commercial banks adapted to this objective”, while at the same time resolving the problem of customers’ “negative perceptions” of the criteria applied by commercial banks to select beneficiaries.

“After this period of greater intervention, with the foreign exchange market better regulated and a greater regularity in the supply of foreign currency, the BNA believes that the conditions are in place to give commercial banks back their autonomy in allocating foreign currency to their clients,” the BNA adds in the same document.

The BNA also guarantees that it will work with financial institutions to ensure a successful transition, which is its responsibility as a supervisor and as a foreign exchange authority, in order to guarantee the absence of negative impacts on the national economy.

“The BNA will also continue to transmit the necessary guidelines to the market and to make the adjustments that the macroeconomic context recommends in order to guarantee the normal functioning of the foreign exchange market,” concludes the statement published on the institution’s official website.