Naira Deteriorates to N770/$1 at Black Market, N461.50/$1 at I&E

By Adedapo Adesanya

As the scarcity of the Naira worsens, sparking protests across the country, its value against the United States Dollar in the foreign exchange (FX) market segments is deteriorating.

Business Post reports that in the black market and the Investors and Exporters (I&E) windows, the domestic currency performed badly against the greenback on Monday, February 20.

It lost N11 against the American currency yesterday to trade at N770/$1 compared with the preceding session’s rate of N759/$1, and in the official market, it depreciated by 25 Kobo or 0.05 per cent to settle at N461.50/$1, in contrast to last Friday’s exchange rate of N461.25/$1.

Data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that the forex turnover on Monday waned by 50.7 per cent or $41.50 million to $40.28 million from the $81.78 million recorded in the preceding session.

But in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) segment, the Nigerian currency gained N1 against the US Dollar to sell at N768/$1 yesterday compared with the previous session’s N769/$1.

In the interbank window, the local currency was flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro on the first trading session of the week at N550.11/£1 and N489.67/€1 apiece.

As for the digital currency market, there was a mixed movement across the tokens tracked by Business Post, as investors look forward to the release of the latest minutes of the United States FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) on Wednesday, followed by US gross domestic product data on Thursday.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose 1.8 per cent to $24,891.52, Ethereum (ETH) improved by 0.7  per cent to $1,697.67, Ripple (XRP) increased by 1.5 per cent to $0.3966, while Dogecoin (DOGE) appreciated by 0.2 per cent to $0.0878.

On the flip side, Litecoin (LTC) lost 2.2 per cent to $95.90, Solana (SOL) slumped 2.0 per cent to $26.00, Binance went down by 0.3 per cent to $314.97, and Cardano (ADA) shed 0.2 per cent to $0.4022, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.