After the Central Bank of Nigeria accused the Abokifx, a website that collates the black market exchange rates of naira, of carrying out an “illegal activity that undermines the economy”. sleekgist.com

Recall that the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, said the publisher of platform, Oniwinde Adedotun, was involved in “illegal forex trading”.

Reacting, AbokiFX has reacted ....sleekgist

Read below

ABOKIFX MANAGEMENT DECISION

abokiFX has taken the decision today, the 17th of September 2021, to temporarily suspend rate updates on all our platforms, until we get better clarity of the situation.

Final rates have been posted this evening but the abokiFX news section and the Crypto rates section will still be active.

WHO WE ARE

abokiFX was established in 2014 as a research and information service company, to conduct market research and gather data on the parallel market rates. We also wanted to provide some transparency around the parallel market with the availability of information technology.

abokiFX purely provides benchmark parallel rate information which helps guide our users in almost 200 countries across the world.
abokiFX does NOT TRADE FX, which we have always maintained in our emails and social media platforms.

We do not Trade FX neither do we have the power to manipulate the rates as we DO NOT CREATE the rates.

We are the only entity in Nigeria that has a full set of parallel rates, right from our inception in 2014 when the exchange rate was trading at N166 to $1.
We collated data for years before we started publishing, as we realised the demand increased for our historical data.

To most users of our platforms, we are just a parallel rates board but to many institutions, ranging from IVY league universities, to global businesses and research centres, we are a key source of data, especially, historical data (almost a decade’s worth of data on parallel rates).

Companies use our data for their internal and external audits as well as planning and budgeting.

We ONLY publish what we source on the streets of Lagos, hence the phrase, Lagos Parallel Rates. The rates sourced are carefully collated, reviewed and a mean rate is published from the data pool. This explains our three daily updates - * Morning, ** Midday, ***Evening.

Sometimes, rates come in late but we have to wait for the full set of rates before they are published, to prevent volatility of rates.

None of our data source providers know who we are or what their rates are being used for. This is to avoid any manipulation of rates.

Our staff have a daily routine of going to the market to gather rates, as all the BDCs in the country have their rates clearly displayed on their rates board and parallel market rate dealers give the information away freely.

All we do is collate all that information and display it on all our platforms daily.

REPLAY OF 2017 vs 2021

In 2017, Nigeria experienced an FX crises and the Naira depreciated to over N500/$1. abokiFX was accused of manipulating the parallel market rates.
Once liquidity was injected, the Naira appreciated and we published the appreciation which is basically what we do.

2021 has seen a similar scenario with the naira depreciating and we have published what we have been given, which has led some to believe we are manipulating the market. Yet no one can complain about our rates deviating +/- 2% from the parallel market rates when they patronise the dealers in the market.

If we do not create the rates, how then can we control the rates. Our only sources of income have been our API and advert sales.

ALLEGATIONS AGAINST OUR DIRECTOR

All allegations against our director are yet to be confirmed but we at abokiFX DO NOT ....https://sleekgist.com/cbn-didnt-close-our-bank-accounts-abokifx-suspends-rate-publication/

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Hanfield:
You probably should be banned the way Twitter was. Dishing out unverified data from random BDC operators on the street. An average BDC guy on the street wants to cashout...calls out ludicrous rates when anyone enquiries then you just publish without due diligence. Correct your ways AbokiiFX don't destroy Nigeria while you sit in London. The economy is gradually bouncing back and now this...am fully behind CBN on this.

He should be banned?
I think your president and his entire cabinet members should be banned and sent to exile