Naira Gains at Official Market, P2P, Stable at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

Though the supply of foreign exchange (FX) in Nigeria has remained low, the Naira closed stronger against the United States Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) and the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segments on Wednesday, September 20, and maintained stability in the parallel market.

According to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange, the local currency appreciated against the Dollar in the midweek session by 0.76 per cent or N5.89 to sell for N770.71/$1 versus the previous rate of N776.60/$1 amid a decline in the value of forex transactions by 9.4 per cent or $6.65 million to $64.36 million from the $71.01 million achieved on Tuesday.

Equally, in the P2P window, the value of the Nigerian currency improved against the greenback during the session by N8 to finish at N970/$1 compared with the preceding day’s exchange rate of N978/$1.

In the black market, the Nigerian Naira retained its previous day’s exchange rate of N970/$1 despite FX traders in the segment struggling to source forex to meet the demand of their customers, who need foreign currencies to pay school fees and others.

Further, in the spot market, the Naira gained N3.21 against the Pound Sterling on Wednesday to trade at N953.55/£1, in contrast to Tuesday’s closing price of N956.76/£1 and appreciated by 41 Kobo against the Dollar to trade at N824.16/€1 versus the preceding day’s N824.57/€1.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market saw Bitcoin (BTC) growing by 0.2 per cent to end at $27,074.28 as the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) of the US Federal Reserve left the interest rate flat.

Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 0.9 per cent to $0.0629, Solana (SOL) appreciated by 0.4 per cent to sell at $19.99, and Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 apeice.

On the flip side, Litecoin (LTC) shed 3.1 per cent to trade at $64.53, Cardano (ADA) recorded a 1.2 per cent decrease to sell at $0.2506, Binance Coin (BNB) lost 0.9 per cent to quote at $214.24, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 0.6 per cent to close at $1,624.00, and Ripple (XRP) declined by 0.4 per cent to $0.5166.