Naira Appreciates to N512/$1 Black Market as Banks Meet FX Demands

By Adedapo Adesanya

The exchange rate of the Naira to the US Dollar at the black market is gradually going back to the level before the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stopped the sale of foreign exchange (FX) sales to the Bureaux De Change (BDCs).

Last Tuesday, the CBN stopped selling forex to BDC operators, asking customers to source their legitimate FX from commercial banks.

This action created panic at the parallel market and the value of the Nigerian currency against its American counterpart sharply rose to N525/$1.

But as banks swung into action by setting up teller points across their branches as directed by the CBN to meet legitimate FX demands of retail customers, as reported by Business Post on Monday, the local currency is beginning to gain more strength.

Yesterday, the Naira appreciated by N3 against the greenback to sell at N512/$1 compared with N515/$1 it traded last Friday.

It also appreciated against the Pound Sterling by N2 to trade at N710/£1 in contrast to the previous rate of N712/£1, but went down by N3 against the Euro to quote at N600/€1 versus N597/€1 of the preceding session.

However, at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window, the domestic currency depreciated against the Dollar by 6 kobo or 0.02 per cent as a result of demand pressure. It closed at the segment at N411.50/$1 compared with the previous N411.44/$1.

Data showed that the turnover for the day rose by 18.3 per cent or $22.12 million to $143.20 million from $121.08 million.

Also, at the interbank segment, the value of the Naira to the US Dollar declined marginally by one kobo to N410.11/$1 from N410.10/$1.

Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market, there were more of the losers than the gainers on Monday from the seven key coins tracked by this newspaper.

Litecoin (LTC) went down by 7.9 per cent to trade at N70,092.03, Dash (DASH) lost 2.9 per cent to sell at N82,561.00, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 0.9 per cent to close at N1,293,919.99, while Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 1.5 per cent to trade at N387.

On the gainers’ angle, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 0.1 per cent to close at N20,395,215.24, Tron (TRX) improved by 0.8 per cent to sell at N33.25, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) gained 0.2 per cent to quote at N512.52.