We are happy to give you a few tips to help with bank transfers in Nigeria.
Sending in USD
Please note that the Central Bank of Nigeria requires that all remittances to Nigeria be done in USD only.
- If you are sending to an existing USD bank account, then it’s fine!
- If you are sending to a bank account that is in Naira, then the bank of your recipient will create a new USD account for them and will get in touch directly to arrange everything.
- Exception: if you send to a Naira bank account at Wemabank, the transfer will fail and you will have to retry but ensure you are sending to a USD bank account
Naira incentive
- In an effort to increase the inflows of remittances into the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced the “CBN Naira 4 Dollar Scheme”, an incentive for senders and recipients.
- Recipients of diaspora remittances through money transfer services such as TTS will be paid N5 into their account for every 1 USD received. Recipients can collect the incentive in cash over the counter or through a deposit into their account. In the case of a deposit, the incentive should reflect the account within 2 working days of the originating remittance.
- Also by sending in USD, your recipient can then get the best local exchange rate, rather than the official central bank rate -- this is good for recipients since the local parallel rate is much higher.