Nigeria’s Letter of Credit payments in the first seven months of 2024 have dropped by 57.04 per cent to $391.91m compared to $912.35m in the same period of 2023. This is according to the weekly International Payments Data provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria on its website. A Letter of Credit is a mode of payment used for the importation of visible goods. It is a written undertaking given by s bank (issuing bank) at the request of its customer in which the bank promises in writing to pay the exporter a certain sum within a certain time frame in return for goods, as long as the customer provides the bank with the proper paperwork. In the period under review, the country’s LCs payment shed about $520.44m, which some analysts have blamed on factors like the exit of multinationals, skyrocketing customs duties, and the unstable foreign exchange, which hampered Nigeria’s foreign trade in the period under review. An analysis of the CBN data showed that the highest LC payments this year were recorded in February at $102.59m, followed by July at $79.65m and $58.33m in January.

Nation