By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Naira suffered a heavy loss against the United States Dollar in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Wednesday.
The Naira, according to data harvested by Business Post, lost N12 or 1.58 per cent against the greenback to settle at N770/$1 compared with the previous day’s closing value of N758/$1.
The demand for USDT for the purchase of digital currency at crypto exchanges weakened the value of the local currency against its American counterpart in the segment of the market yesterday.
Also, in the black market, the domestic currency depreciated against the Dollar in the midweek session by N5 to trade at N749/$1, in contrast to Tuesday’s exchange rate of N744/$1.
It was not different in the official market yesterday as the Naira shed 46 Kobo or 0.10 per cent to quote at N465.13/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N464.67/$1.
This newspaper observed that the country’s legal tender was under FX demand pressure during the session, resulting in the loss reported at the close of transactions.
According to FMDQ Securities Exchange, the turnover for the trading day stood at $267.04 million compared with Tuesday’s $127.22 million, representing a decline of $139.82 million or 109.90 per cent.
A deeper look at the transactions showed that customers bid the Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the forex market as low as N460.00/$1 and as high as N466.89/$1.