Naira Further Devalues to N562/$1 at Unregulated Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The devaluation of the Naira against the United States Dollar at the unregulated segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market is already giving many observers something to worry about.

The situation took yet another worse turn on Wednesday as the mounting pressure caused by forex illiquidity further weakened the local currency to N562 against a single unit of the American Dollar at the parallel market.

This indicated that the domestic currency additionally fell by N5 at the market yesterday as it was traded at N557/$1 at the previous session.

At the unregulated market, the Nigerian currency depreciated against the Euro by N3 to close at N648/€1 in contrast to N645/€1 of the preceding day but closed flat against the Pound Sterling N760/£1.

However, the value of the Naira against the Dollar appreciated by 2 kobo at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window to N412.06/$1 from N412.08/$1 it was sold on Tuesday.

Data showed that this occurred despite a 76.4 per cent or $133.82 million increase in the total transactions achieved yesterday as trades worth $308.92 million were made compared to the $175.10 million achieved on Tuesday.

But the Nigerian currency depreciated against the American currency by 4 kobo at the interbank segment of the market to N410.55/$1 from N410.51/$1 at the midweek session.

Meanwhile, transactions at the cryptocurrency market were bullish on Wednesday as all the key tokens tracked by Business Post ended in the green zone.

Tron (TRX) made a 5.7 per cent appreciation to sell at N68.20, Ethereum (ETH) made a 5.6 per cent appreciation to close at N1,946,146.03, Ripple (XRP) grew by 5.1 per cent to N632.98, while Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 4.0 per cent to sell at N236,795.60.

Also, Cardano (ADA) improved by 3.4 per cent to N1,462.28, Litecoin (LTC) gained 3.1 per cent to sell at N105,000, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 2.2 per cent to N139.70, Bitcoin (BTC) jumped by 1.8 per cent to N26,606,028.48, Dash (DASH) gained 0.6 per cent to trade at N117, 000.00, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) equally went up by 0.6 per cent to N632.98.