Banks raise FX school fees request time, cut BTA, PTA

Nigerian banks have commenced an upward review of the processing time for accessing foreign exchange (FX) for international school fees to 120 days from 48 hours.

They have also cut the amount of dollars for personal travel allowance (PTA) and Business Travel Allowance (BTA) by 50 and 60 percent to $2,000 from $4,000 and $5,000 respectively.

This is seen in Access Bank’s notice to its customers, titled, “important information on Form A request’. Other banks are said to follow suit.

The notice said “We value your relationship with us and would like to keep you informed on updates regarding our fulfillment 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.

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“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.”

In 2017, the CBN directed banks to meet all PTA needs within 24 hours of application and respond within 48 hours if the application was in respect to paying school fees and medical bills.

Subsequently, the processing time was reduced to 30 days and later on to 60 days due to dollar shortages.

Last year, First Bank of Nigeria told its customers in a notice that a minimum of 60 days was required for processing school fees and upkeep/maintenance, after the submission of documents along with the approved Form A at the bank’s branch.

According to the notice, payment of school fees was subject to a maximum of $15,000 per semester and limited to 2 semesters per session.

Application for Upkeep was subject to a maximum of $3,000 (or its equivalent in other currencies) per Semester, limited to 2 semesters per session.

“Payment of school fees for the current session must be made through FirstBank for upkeep to be processed.

Application for Form A for (School fees, Student Upkeep and PTA/BTA) must be processed on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Trade Monitoring System (TRMS) Platform and must be in line with Regulatory Requirements.”

Naira on Monday fell by 0.4 percent against the dollar following increased demand for the greenback, by mostly politicians, ahead of the gubernatorial traders’ statement.

After trading on Monday, the local currency depreciated to an average rate of N753 per dollar, down from N750, last week at the parallel market.

At the Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window Naira depreciated by 0.04 percent as the dollar was quoted at N461.67 on Monday as against the last close of N461.50 on Friday.