Fresh FX Scarcity Weakens Naira at I&E, P2P, Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The value of the Naira against the US Dollar weakened in the different segments of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Tuesday due to fresh FX scarcity in the country.

It was observed that the volume of forex in the system could not match the demand of customers, putting pressure on the domestic currency during the trading session.

Consequently, the Nigerian currency fell in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P), parallel market, and the Investors and Exporters (I&E) windows of the FX market at the close of business.

Business Post reports that in the P2P wing of the market, the Naira shed N10.09 against the greenback to sell at N788.17/$1 versus N777.08/$1 of the preceding day.

Also, in the black market, the local currency lost N6 against the American currency to quote at N779/$1 compared with Monday’s closing price of N773/$1.

In the official market, the Naira depreciated against the Dollar yesterday by N26.94 or 3.63 per cent to trade at N768.44/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s N741.50/$1.

FMDQ Securities Exchange posted that the value of forex transactions remained low on Tuesday as the turnover stood at $73.86 million, $14.82 million or 16.7 per cent lower than the $88.68 million achieved at the week’s first trading session.

However, in the interbank segment of the market, the Naira witnessed gained N31.99 against the Pound Sterling to finish at N948.03/£1 versus N980.02/£1 and against the Euro, it gained N26.17 to end at N814.71/€1 versus N840.88/€1.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) remained below the $31,000 region even as investors remained optimistic after BlackRoc refiled its spot Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) application on Monday despite criticism from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of an earlier filing.

It lost 0.6 per cent during the session to sell for $30,833.54, Ethereum (ETH) shed 0.9 per cent to close at $1,935.29, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 2.7 per cent to $104.90, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 1.0 per cent to $243.46, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 0.8 per cent to $0.295, and Ripple (XRP) lost 0.3 per cent to trade at $0.4895.

But Dogecoin (DOGE) chalked up 0.7 per cent to sell at $0.0689, Solana (SOL) grew by 0.5 per cent to $19.28, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.