Over the past month, Nigeria’s commercial banks declared reduced limits on international transactions using naira debit cards to $20 per month.
It means Nigerians would be unable to use their naira debit cards to make any transactions more than $20 in a month. This comes as a longstanding scarcity of foreign exchange continues to bite Africa’s largest economy and biggest oil exporter, Nigeria, despite the recent surge in global energy prices.
The United Bank of Africa (UBA), in February first took the decision when it notified customers of $20 as its new limit. According to the declaration, “In line with our promise to keep you updated on services, we have reviewed Naira Card limits for international transactions, and this will take effect 1st of March, 2022.”
Technology companies and Nigerians who are dealing with dollars in their business opted for alternatives, some financial companies partner with foreign companies to provide virtual dollar cards, but at black market rate.
However, Flutterwave, one of the companies, announced the suspension of its virtual card service, Barter card, due to what it described as “an update from our card partner, which will cause the card service to be unavailable for an extended period of time.”
“There is currently no timeframe for resolution, however, we would be sure to send out communications once this becomes available,” said by the company. This has thrown many Nigerians who rely on this channel for their dollar transactions on edge.
Also, Chipper Cash, its alternative, is not providing dollar virtual cards to its new customers.
Standard Chartered Bank who offers international banking service has also suspended international spending on its Debit card starting from August 1.
The bank stated this in a mail to customers, which was signed by its head of deposits, debit cards and mortgages.
Though Nigerians can use their naira-denominated debit cards to pay for transactions billed in US dollars online, for every purchase, debits are made directly from their naira accounts at current exchange rates.
There is uncertainty among small tech businesses and Nigerians who are dealing with the dollar. This is as the dollar spending limit and suspension of virtual cards ground businesses. Business operations who do not have a domiciliary account have been consumed with the policy and they cannot make any importation or buy with a local currency card.
Lukman Ibrahim, a Chief Executive Officer of Halal Payments Network, a tech company in Nigeria while speaking on the issue said the company’s cloud infrastructures which mostly dominate the company’s App server is based in the United State of America.
Limitations on dollar spending and suspension of dollar virtual cards which was the alternative have deterred the company from paying the subscription and is affecting the business.
“The major challenge we have now is paying for all of the infrastructures in dollars with the spending limit, it deterred us from paying which will definitely affect our business in the coming month when we try to resubscribe again. Most of the cloud infrastructure that we use or API services that are being charged are always in dollars, so it is really going to affect us.
“There’s a multi-currency visa card we are trying to apply for, so hopefully when it comes out, I think the spending limit on the card is around $1000 to $3000 but for the local card it is $20,000.
“There is nothing to use at the moment because we are using virtual cards now and most of the companies have already closed their dollar card so it’s a pathetic situation right now, especially since we transact every day on dollars,” he said.
