Tanzania targets to shut down about half of the country's 297 forex bureaus, the central bank said Tuesday.
The
Bank of Tanzania (BoT's) director of banking supervision, Mr Eliamringi
Mandari, said 110 bureaux de changes have closed shop as at the end of
January this year.
BoT has at the same time relicensed 71 forex traders with another 65 currently under review.
"Our
expectation is that when the exercise is completed, at least 50 per
cent of the bureaux de changes would have stopped operations," Mr
Mandari said in a press conference.
He said the audit of the forex bureaus is expected to be completed in two weeks.
Tanzania has been tightening forex controls to tackle financial crimes and protect the local currency.
New capital requirements
In
June 2017, BoT raised the minimum capital requirements for the forex
bureaus, placed a moratorium on new operations and required all existing
traders to apply for new licences.
The capital levels
were revised to Tsh300 million ($132,000) from Tsh100 million ($44,000)
for bureaus dealing with spot foreign exchange transactions. For those
additionally dealing with money transfers the minimum threshold was set
at Tsh1 billion ($440,000) up from Tsh250 million ($110,000).
The
regulator has also ordered owners of the bureaus to authenticate the
source of funds invested in their businesses and doubled the
non-interest bearing deposit to $100,000. The deposit is held by BoT as
security for money transfer transactions.
"Some could
not meet the new capital requirements while others failed to prove
whether the amount they wanted to inject in the new capital was genuine
or not," Mr Mandari said.
-Reporting by Rosemary Mirondo.
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