By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerians and some business owners who could not access foreign exchange (FX) through the official channels bought the Dollar at the unregulated forex market on Monday at N550/$1.
This followed the worsening FX crisis in the country as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) scratches its head on the best way to solve this incessant problem.
According to information gathered by Business Post, as the official channels could not meet the huge demands of customers, Nigerians had to source forex from other places, including the streets and because of the discontinuation of FX allocation to Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators by the CBN, traders with FX have resorted to hoarding, causing the local currency to depreciate.
Yesterday the Nigerian Naira lost N5 against the American currency. Last Friday, the Nigerian currency traded at the parallel market at N545/$1.
At the same segment, the domestic currency lost N7 against the Pound Sterling to quote at N750/£1 compared with the previous rate of N743/£1 but it closed flat against the Euro at N636/€1.
At one of the regulated channels, the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the Naira depreciated against the Dollar by 75 kobo or 0.18 per cent yesterday to sell for N412.75/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N412.00/$1.
This followed a $73.43 million or 83.1 per cent increase in the demand for FX at the market segment as the turnover rose to $161.82 million from $88.39 million recorded last Friday.
It was not a different scenario at the interbank segment of the market as the Nigerian currency depreciated against the greenback yesterday by 3 koto as it was sold at N410.51/$1 in contrast to the last rate of N410.48/$1.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market traded mixed on Monday with the Dash (DASH) rising by 2.2 per cent to trade at N112,659.51 and Litecoin (LTC) growing by 0.6 per cent to sell at N100,740.32.
The Dogecoin (DOGE) appreciated by 0.8 per cent to N139.70, Binance Coin (BNB) gained 0.4 per cent to sell for N219,276.35, while Cardano (ADA) also increased by 0.4 per cent to quote at N1,457.25.
However, Ripple (XRP) shed 4.3 per cent to close at N588.20, Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 1.9 per cent to close at N24,479,105.59, Ethereum (ETH) went down by 1.2 per cent to N1,801,000.01, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) declined by 1.1 per cent to trade at N551.11, while Tron (TRX) dropped 0.4 per cent to sell at N59.91.
