Luanda - The National Bank of Angola (BNA) established the amount of 250,000 US dollars as the limit for annual transfers for unilateral foreign exchange operations, while for commercial operations the basic criterion applied is the financial capacity of the sender.
Unilateral foreign exchange operations are those carried out without taking into consideration the sender's account abroad, while commercial operations, which generate benefits are limited to the financial capacity.
According to the sub-director of the Department of Regulation and Organisation of the Financial System of the BNA, Alves Ferreira, the 250 000 US dollars are the values analyzed as sufficient for an individual to transfer to his account abroad in a year.
"For example, someone who travels abroad 10 times will take $25,000 per month, that's reasonable", Ferreira said.
As for commercial operations, those that when carried out there is a counterpart, it is sufficient to gauge the legitimate financial capacity of the person.
"I acquire a service or a good abroad. I will buy or acquire the service at whatever value I can, as long as I can prove the financial capacity to do so", the BNA official said.
Ferreira explained that the advantage is that those who have their funds and can legally prove the origin will be able to transfer money abroad to the extent of their financial capacity.
The BNA official underlined that there will be no restriction on the citizen with values in the bank seeking to carry out commercial operations, since the financial capacity is the money he possesses and that if he has a lot of money, he will be able to use the money he has.
Despite that, Ferreira said that the criteria for defining financial capacity does not allow this person to obtain funds from third parties, providing that it is essential to assess the legitimacy of the money that someone earns.
"The country must be compliant, so must the clients. A compliant country is one that establishes strict rules to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. This is a duty of the BNA and, if on the one hand there is liberalization, so that bank customers can more comfortably carry out operations, on the other hand there is greater rigour in relation to money laundering", Ferreira explained.
He pointed out as an advantage the fact that it allows individuals to carry out foreign exchange operations without the need for authorization from an administrative body, in this case the Central Bank.
He noted that, due to this fact, Angola gained a positive image in the international context regarding the financial point of view.
