The Central Bank finally let Bureau de Change operators back into the official foreign exchange market. Each licensed BDC can now buy up to $150,000 weekly from authorized dealer banks. The catch: they have 24 hours to sell any unused dollars back to the market. No hoarding. No speculation. Use it or lose it.

It's a sensible rule. It also assumes BDC operators will follow it. Recent history suggests they won't.

The CBN suspended dollar sales to BDCs months ago after the gap between official and parallel market rates widened past ₦90 for the first time in three years. That gap exists because someone is buying dollars officially and selling them unofficially at inflated rates. BDCs were the obvious suspects. Cutting off their supply was supposed to close the arbitrage window. It didn't. The gap widened anyway. So now the CBN is trying a different approach: give them access again, but tighten the rules.

Here's what changed. BDCs can source forex from any authorized dealer bank at prevailing market rates. No fixed allocation, no preferential pricing. Banks must conduct full Know Your Customer checks and due diligence before selling. BDCs must submit electronic returns showing what they bought and sold. Settlements must go through licensed financial institution accounts (no cash deals except for 25% of each transaction). Third-party transactions are banned. And most importantly, any forex not sold to end users within 24 hours must be returned to the market.

That last rule is the one that matters. If enforced, it kills the business model that made some BDCs rich: buy dollars cheap officially, hold them until the naira weakens, then sell at parallel market rates and pocket the difference. The 24-hour window eliminates that play. In theory.

In practice, enforcement is where these policies always break down. The CBN can mandate electronic reporting. BDCs can submit false reports. The CBN can require settlement through bank accounts. BDCs can create shell customers to justify holding dollars longer than 24 hours. The CBN can ban third-party transactions. BDCs can use fronts. None of this is hypothetical. It's how the system worked before suspension, and nothing structural has changed to prevent it now.

Aminu Gwadebe, president of the Association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria, welcomed the directive. He called it "highly commendable" and a sign of the CBN's commitment to financial inclusion and market liquidity. He thanked the CBN for its "clarity, support, inclusiveness, and consistent guidance." He didn't address why his members needed to be cut off in the first place.

The charitable interpretation is that most BDC operators are legitimate and a few bad actors spoiled things for everyone. The realistic interpretation is that the business model itself creates perverse incentives. When your profit depends on exchange rate volatility, you benefit from instability. When regulations are poorly enforced, you exploit loopholes. When oversight is weak, you take risks. The CBN's new rules try to close those loopholes. But rules only work if someone checks compliance.

The $150,000 weekly cap is another test. For legitimate operators serving genuine customers (travelers, students, businesses with small forex needs), that's sufficient. For operators running parallel market schemes, it's a limitation. Whether it's an effective limitation depends on how many licensed BDCs exist and whether they coordinate. If 100 BDCs each buy $150,000 weekly and funnel it through a network of front customers, that's $15 million weekly flowing into informal channels. Enough to move exchange rates.

The CBN says the move aims to "ensure adequate foreign exchange liquidity in the retail segment" and "meet legitimate needs of end users." Both are worthwhile goals. They're also goals the CBN has announced before, with different policies, all of which failed to stabilize the naira long-term. The problem was never lack of policy creativity. It was lack of enforcement consistency.

So here we are again. New rules. Same operators. The CBN hoping this time will be different. Nigerians watching the parallel market rate to see if it is.