Naira Depreciates at Official Market, P2P, Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar in the first trading session of the week, its first major decline across the foreign exchange (FX) market segments since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) commenced the clearance of forex backlogs last week.

In the official market, which is the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), the local currency lost 4.2 per cent or N32.88 against the greenback to settle at N809.02/$1 compared with last Friday’s rate of N776.14/$1.

The domestic currency suffered the loss as the supply of FX to the spot market went down by 11.3 per cent or $11.17 million to $87.65 million from the $98.82 million achieved in the preceding session.

Indications showed that the latest injection from the CBN didn’t cover most Tier-1 banks which still have their obligations not met and this returned pressure to the market.

In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the Nigerian currency depreciated on the American currency yesterday by N88 to close at N980/$1 versus the previous session’s rate of N892/$1.

In the parallel market, the value of the Naira against the US Dollar weakened on Monday by N20 to settle at N960/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N940/$1.

However, the Naira witnessed no movement against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the official market during the trading day, remaining unchanged at N966.43/£1 and N839.39/€1 apiece.

In the cryptocurrency market, Solana (SOL) continued to improve its value amid a new interest following the FTX debacle, recording its biggest gain after rising by 7.2 per cent to sell at $42.54.

Further, Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 3.5 per cent to $238.42, Ethereum (ETH) went up by 1.9 per cent to $1,864.49, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 1.6 per cent appreciation to sell at $0.0691, Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 1.4 per cent to close at $35,140.72, Litecoin (LTC) expanded by 0.9 per cent to trade at $72.09, Cardano (ADA) jumped by 0.9 per cent to $0.33, and Ripple (XRP) increased by 0.8 per cent to $0.6172, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) traded flat at $1.00, respectively.