By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira seems to be regaining the confidence of foreign exchange (FX) users in the official FX market, the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), as it further gained 0.72 per cent or N9.68 against the United States Dollar on Wednesday, May 29, trading at N1,329.65/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s rate of N1,339.33/$1, according to data obtained from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
But it maintained stability against the Pound Sterling and the Euro yesterday at the spot market at N1,764.43/£1 and N1,500.58/€1, respectively, amid a 2.5 per cent or $8.22 million rise in forex transactions to $336.54 million from the $328.32 million posted a day earlier.
Business Post reports that the Nigerian Naira gained N15 against the Dollar at midweek, to trade at N1,490/$1 compared with the preceding session’s closing price of N1,505/$1.
The level at which the Naira is trading now points to strengthening Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPIs) coupled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) selling some dollars in the market.
The development comes as the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators in Nigeria urged the CBN to review minimum capital requirements for its members.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market recorded losses as the meme coin market heated up following the ease of Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETF) approval news.
ETH lost 1.9 per cent to quote at $3,781.73, Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 1.3 per cent to sell for $67,658.41, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 1.1 per cent to $0.4528, Binance Coin (BNB) dipped by 0.9 per cent to $596.23, Dogecoin (DOGE) went down by 0.9 per cent to sell at $0.1645, Ripple (XRP) also slumped by 0.9 per cent to trade at $0.5239 and Solana (SOL) slumped by 0.1 per cent to close the session at $169.26.
However, the price of Litecoin (LTC) jumped by 0.4 per cent to settle at $83.78, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.
