Adedapo Adesanya
By Ahmed Rahma, Adedapo Adesanya
The monetary authorities in Nigeria will likely be scratching their heads at the moment as the newly introduced foreign exchange (FX) policy seems to be putting much pressure on the Naira instead of the other way round.
Over the weekend, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) started a promo that gives an extra N5 for every single Dollar received via diaspora remittances.
Some analysts have commented on this scheme tagged CBN Naira 4 Dollar, warning that it might not really achieve its intended goals.
On Tuesday, the local currency further suffered losses at two of the segments of the FX market; the unregulated and the Investors and Exporters (I&E) windows.
At the black market, the domestic currency lost N2 against the greenback to sell at N484/$1 compared to N482/$1 it previously traded. However, it appreciated by N3 against the Euro to trade at N580/€1 versus N583/€1 and further closed flat against the Pound Sterling at N675/£1.
Business Post reports that at the I&E segment, the domestic currency further dropped 12 kobo or 0.03 per cent against the US Dollar to quote at N412/$1 in contrast to N411.88/$1 of the opening session of the week.
The depreciation was influenced by a significant spike in the demand for the greenback as data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that transactions worth $110.01 million were carried out on Tuesday.
At the preceding session, trades worth $32.58 million were executed, indicating a demand surged by 237.7 per cent or $77.43 million.
However, at the interbank segment, the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar remained unchanged yesterday at N379/$1.
Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency space, all the seven tokens tracked by Business Post closed positive, with the Dash (DASH) rising by 9.4 per cent to sell at N146,650.02.
The Tron (TRX) appreciated by 6.0 per cent to sell at N33.93; Litecoin (LTC) gained 4.9 per cent to trade at N124,000; Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 3.4 per cent to quote at N33,601,991.99; Ethereum (ETH) rose by 2.1 per cent to N1,121,116.04; the US Dollar Tether (USDT) jumped by 1.2 per cent to N639.55; while Ripple (XRP) expanded by 0.8 per cent to N303.99.
