The Head of Financial Stability at the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Joseph France, says forex bureaus are essential to Ghana’s fiscal space as they help flush out parallel market operators.

According to him, the Central Bank supports the proliferation of forex bureaus to make it handy for persons wanting to buy and or sell currency to do so without resorting to the black market.

He explained that black market operations are inimical to the country’s fiscal space as they often times abscond with people’s monies and sometimes offer counterfeits to unsuspecting customers.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express Business Edition, Dr. France said because bureaus are strictly regulated and supervised by the Bank of Ghana, they are less likely to commit infractions to customers.

“You have bureaus everywhere so that it will not be difficult for you to change money or to have access to changing money. And that in a way will help flush out these parallel market operators who are very inimical to our system.

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“At least the bureaus are regulated, they have been licensed, we have data on them, they may not shortchange you than a parallel market operator who will give you counterfeit money and may even run away with your money and so on. So we regulate the bureaus and we make sure that they go by the rules of the game.

“You may have some recalcitrant ones who do one or two things, but they’re corrected and they’re brought to book. But when it comes to the parallel market operators, nobody checks them and so the radar is actually on these parallel market operators that are operating in the dark and running away with people’s money and bringing counterfeit money into the system,” he said.

He further stated that the Bank of Ghana is currently working assiduously to tighten gaps that may allow some corrupt elements from infiltrating the forex bureau system.

He said the Central Bank is instituting a system to check the transactions of these bureaus in real time to ensure that they are providing their services as expected and keeping within their limits.