BEIRUT: The Central Banks new electronic platform will eventually check the rise of the dollar against the Lebanese pound and regulate the parallel market, the head of BDL foreign currency unit Abbas Awada said Friday.

The new platform launched by BDL aims to monitor the daily foreign currency exchange transactions and to determine the actual size of the parallel market (better known as the black market). If the supply of the dollars is bigger than the demand the rate must naturally go down Awada told The Daily Star.

We will not allow anyone to pile up dollar banknotes randomly for the sake of speculation. We are trying to end these practices, Awada stressed.

The partners in the platform remained the same: the Central Bank, banks and money changers, with the difference of allowing banks to sell and buy dollars in cash, according to internal operational mechanisms, work, monitoring and control mechanisms, determined by the Central Bank.

Awada dismissed claims by some licensed exchange dealers that the new system needs more modifications.

There is nothing wrong with the Sayrafa system. Our service department is solving any problem facing any bank or exchange dealer. We wont accept any excuses not to operate the new system, he added

Awada ridiculed the argument by some exchange dealers that many customers refuse to produce their IDs and documents when they try to buy or sell dollar banknotes.

BDLs circular is clear. Any licensed exchange dealer who conducts any transaction without the platform will be penalized BDLs Banking Control Commission which has the power to revoke the license of any institution that violates the rules, he explained.

Awada assured that the platform is working smoothly and there were hardly any complaints from the users.

The platform will also compile a data base on all those who bought or sold foreign currencies from banks and exchange dealers in Lebanon.

We insist on asking any person who wants to buy or sell dollars to give a copy of his ID and picture. This will help us to see if any of these persons have some kind of criminal record, Awada said.

He saw no reason for any person in Lebanon and who does not have obligates to send money abroad to hoard dollars in his house.

The plumber, car mechanic and electrician should bill their customers in Lebanese pound only. There is no justification for any merchant to insist on getting paid in dollars only, Awada said.

BDL official assured that the size of the parallel market is very tiny and insignificant, but did not give an estimate on the size of this market.

But Mahmoud Halawi, a licensed exchange dealers, told The Daily Star the new system may need some modification in order to serve customers.

He added that most of the citizens who want to sell small amounts of dollar banknotes refuse to show their ID cards to the exchange dealers, prompting them to go to the black market and sell their dollars.

This category of people is not major players in the market. Most of these people want to sell $100 and up to $5,000 to the exchange dealers and for this reason they think its not worth showing the ID cards to the licensed dealers, Halawi claimed

For the second week running, the Central Bank said Friday that it will sell dollar banknotes to Lebanese banks on its Sayrafa platform at the rate of LL12,000 as of Friday until Tuesday next week.

The greenback was trading at LL12,950 on the parallel market, slightly down from Thursday's LL13,000.

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