Aduragbemi Omiyale
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A tier-I financial institution in Nigeria, Access Bank Plc, has informed its customers that they would no longer have access to $4,000 per quarter for personal travel allowance (PTA) and business travel allowance (BTA), as this has been reduced to $4,000 per year.
In a notice sent out last week, the lender disclosed that this new allocation would be given to applicants twice per year as long as they fulfil some requirements, including applying for foreign exchange (FX) requests within 14 days of the travel date.
Nigerian banks have had to reduce forex allocation because of a shortage in the supply of foreign earnings, especially from the sale of crude oil caused by theft.
They have been making efforts to manage the shortfall by rationing the available forex and, in some cases, blocking customers’ access to FX.
In the latest notice, the bank noted that the update on the BTA and PTA requests was necessary because of the priority it places on its customers.
“We value your relationship with us and would like to keep you informed on updates regarding our fulfilment of Form A requests.
“PTA/BTA requests are now processed a maximum of twice annually per applicant to the tune of $2,000 per application where the request is within 14 days of the travel date.
“International school fees and upkeep requests are processed within 120 days from the date of approval.
“All applications are processed and disbursed subject to FX availability, proper documentation, and provided the account to be debited is sufficiently funded to cover the Form A charge and other processing fees.
“Kindly ensure your account is sufficiently funded to accommodate the value of the transaction and charges at the time of processing as any request not backed with an adequately funded account or the required documentation will be rejected and considered a new request upon re-submission.
“Updates on pending, approved or rejected Form A requests are duly posted and accessible on the Trade Monitoring System portal,” the notice said.
Recall that last year, Access Bank informed its customers that it would only allocate forex to them only two times a year.
