Nine deposit money banks (DMBs) are in trouble for hiding over $2.274 billion belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has banned the banks from the foreign exchange market.
The banks, whose suspension would remain in force until they remit all the funds to the TSA, are United Bank for Africa (UBA) $530m; First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) $469m; Diamond Bank Plc ($287m); Sterling Bank Plc ($269m); Sky Bank Plc ($221m); Fidelity Bank ($209m); Keystone Bank ($139); First City Monument Bank (FCMB) $125m; and Heritage Bank ($85m).
President Muhammadu Buhari has been briefed on the breach by the banks. They have been mandated to move the monies to the TSA before any consideration for their re-entry into forex trading.
Two days ago, the banks came under fire from the apex bank, which accused them of engaging in round tripping and threatening to punish them for doing so.
Many of the banks declined official comments on the development.
UBA said: “Our attention has been drawn to report of the ban of UBA from the foreign exchange market by the CBN over the non-remittance of NNPC/NLNG dollar deposits.
“We wish to state very categorically that UBA has completely remitted all NNPC/NLNG dollar deposits.
“We thank all our numerous customers, business partners and other stakeholders who have reached out to us on account of this report.”
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