Naira Depreciates to N1,331/$1 at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira fell by N1.60 or 0.12 per cent against the United States Dollar on Monday, October 5, in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) to exchange at N1,331.69/$1 from N1,330.09/$1.

It also depreciated against the Pound Sterling in the official market by 25 Kobo to sell for N1,759.83/£1 compared with last Friday’s N1,759.58/£1, but gained N4.60 against the Euro to settle at N1,492.16/€1 versus the previous session’s N1,496.76/€1.

However, it traded flat against the US Dollar in the black market yesterday at N1,370/$1, and also maintained stability at the GTBank forex counter at N1,338/$1.

Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that FX turnover for the session weakened by 53.2 per cent to $72.119 million on Monday from $154.021 million, with the number of deals rising to 103 from 70.

Nigerian businesses expect the domestic currency to record modest gains against the US Dollar in the coming months, despite hurdles like multiple taxation, insecurity, and high interest rates.

As for the cryptocurrency market, it was mixed on Monday, as traders reassessed Friday’s conclusion that an October rate hike was off the table following the weak US employment report.

Among the 10 benchmarked tokens by this newspaper, three were in the green, led by Cardano (ADA), which appreciated by 6.7 per cent to $0.2694. Ethereum (ETH) added 0.4 per cent to trade at $2,715.00, and TRON (TRX) improved by 0.2 per cent to $0.3363, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.

But Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 1.4 per cent to sell at $0.0956, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 0.9 per cent to $786.37, Solana (SOL) dropped 0.6 per cent to close at $120.66, Ripple (XRP) declined by 0.3 per cent to $1.50, and Bitcoin (BTC) slipped by 0.2 per cent to $85,894.14.