Natalie Haynes, deputy governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), telling reporters and editors at the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange that the central bank has a 60-business day turnover time to process cambio licence applications. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has put the brakes on reducing the surrender requirement of foreign exchange (FX) by the island’s cambios.

This is owing to the growing demand for hard currency by a number of public sector entities. Cambios are required by law to sell a portion of their daily purchases of foreign exchange to the central bank, which is known as the surrender requirement.

There have been periodic cuts in the surrender requirement over the years. The last one took place on February 7, 2018 when the rate was shaved by five percentage points to 15 per cent of daily gross purchases.

Deputy BOJ Governor Natalie Haynes explained that the central bank was on a path to reducing the surrender requirement but had to forego this trend in order to be able to supply public sector entities with foreign exchange for their purchases.

Speaking at last week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange, Haynes singled out Petrojam, in particular, as one of those public sector entities to which the BOJ directly supplies foreign exchange.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/boj-halts-reductions-of-cambio-surrender-requirement-petrojam-largest-user-of-fx_172060