Naira Depreciates to N715 Per Pound at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The recent headwinds facing the Naira continued on Tuesday at the parallel market as it depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N5 to sell for N715/£1 in contrast to N710/£1 it traded on Monday.

The local currency has come under pressure in the past two weeks, making it lose its value against most of the foreign currencies at the market.

Though it appears that the pressure is gradually easing, especially after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced that it would increase foreign exchange (FX) allocations to banks so as to meet the demands of their customers, things are still not okay at the unregulated market where people source for forex not met at other tightly controlled channels.

It was observed that yesterday, the local currency traded flat against the US Dollar at the black market at N502/$1 and gained N2 against the Euro to sell for N605/€1 compared to N607/€1 of the previous session.

But at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the Nigerian Naira lost 43 kobo or 0.10 per cent against the greenback to trade at N411.50/$1 versus N411.07/$1 of the preceding trading day.

This occurred despite a back-to-back drop in the demand for FX at the regulated market segment as transactions for the day stood at $62.79 million, $88.58 million or 58.5 per cent lower than the $151.37 million recorded on Monday.

However, the Naira appreciated marginally against the Dollar at the interbank category by 2 kobo or 0.01 per cent to quote at N410.15/$1 compared with the previous day’s N410.17/$1.

Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market on Tuesday, investor sentiment is still weak as five of the seven cryptos tracked by Business Post on Quidax closed bearish.

Ethereum (ETH) lost 8.3 per cent to sell for N1,249,599.00, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 8.8 per cent to trade at N80,899.00, Dash (DASH) dropped 7.9 per cent to sell at N88,445.00, Ripple (XRP) declined by 2.6 per cent to quote at N437.18, while Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 1.9 per cent to sell at N16,432,111.87.

But the US Dollar Tether (USDT) appreciated by 2.6 per cent to sell for N513.98, while Tron (TRX) improved its value by 1.6 per cent to trade at N37.27.