28.6% Surge in FX Transactions Weakens Naira at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated against the American Dollar on Wednesday at the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) arm of the foreign exchange (FX) market by N1 to close at N759/$1, in contrast to the N760/$1 it was traded on Tuesday.

However, in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the Nigerian currency depreciated against its United States counterpart by 40 Kobo or 0.09 per cent to settle at N461.90/$1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N461.50/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.

Transactions data for the midweek trading day showed that the value of forex traded in the spot market jumped by 28.6 per cent or $33.63 million to $151.26 million from the $117.63 million reported a day earlier.

Also, in the parallel market, the local currency weakened against the greenback yesterday by N1 to close at N742/$1 compared with Tuesday’s exchange rate of N741/$1.

In the interbank segment, the domestic currency closed flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro at the midweek session at N549.03/£1 and N485.15/€1, respectively.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market was bullish on Wednesday as prices of most tokens monitored by Business Post were in the green territory, with Ripple (XRP) improving by 5.9 per cent to trade at $0.3744.

Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 1.2 per cent to settle at $279.39, Litecoin (LTC) increased its value by 1.1 per cent to $82.95, Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 0.5 per cent to $17,530.76, Dogecoin (DOGE) went northwards by 0.2 per cent to sell at $0.0773, and Ethereum (ETH) saw a 0.07 per cent appreciation to trade at $1,341.30.

But the value of Cardano (ADA) went down by 2.3 per cent to trade at $0.3167, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) closed flat at $1.00 each.