Bureau de Changes take position to start businesses
Over 60 Foreign Exchange Bureaux playing in all major cities of the country under different names were seen on Monday morning to have started dusting their cash safes, counters, cleaning windows and carpets signalling a pole position stance to start business and probably an early demise of what are called the black markets.
During the rule of late President Bingu Wa Mutharika the bureaux suffered a major shock after being ordered to close shops and reapply to Reserve Bank of Malawi under new regulations that they should twin with any of the country’s Authorised Dealer Banks (ADBs).
Majority of them declined to partner with ADBs and that invited an arrow from late Mutharika through his RBM Governor Perks Ligoya by sending them out of business.
Spot checks by the Nyasa Times has indicated that the bureau owners like Victoria Forex Bureau, Golden Forex Bureau and several others have already started cleaning their premises that lay inactive since 2008.
The start of business by these bureaux will mean the black market is heavily under attack where a customer will now freely get foreign currency from a legitimate source thereby contributing to the heavy fall of the parallel market.
The commercial banks have adjusted upwards their forex cash rates from K180 to a dollar to about K280 a dollar. It is expected that the forex bureaux will peg their rates at around K310 to a dollar and create a windfall of the green buck on the market.
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