Naira Loses Against Pound Sterling to N468/£ as UK Election Knocks

By Adedapo Adesanya

As the December 12 general election in the United Kingdom move closer, the Pound Sterling continues to dominate as evident on Friday, December 6 when the Naira depreciated further to trade at N468/£1 at the parallel segment of the foreign exchange market.

This would be the third consecutive day that the Nigerian currency would depreciate against its British counterpart at the black market. On Wednesday (December 4), it exchanged at N466/£1. The next day, Thursday (December 5), it weakened to N467/£1 before closing the week on Friday at N468/£1.

Business Post reports that on Thursday, the Pound Sterling hit a seven-month high against the Dollar on the back of the forthcoming poll, which observers say favours the Conservative Party of the British Prime Minister, Mr Boris Johnson, who is determined to lead the UK out of the European Union.

However, when paired with other major currencies at the same segment, the Naira closed flat against both the Euro and the US Dollar at the last trading day of the week.

For the Naira against the Euro, it saw no change throughout the week at N396/€1. Following the same pattern, the Naira remained at the N360 to a Dollar at the parallel market all through the week.

At the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment, according to data sourced from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, the Naira depreciated again by 0.02 percent equivalent to 7 Kobo to trade at N363.14/$1 in contrast to N363.07/$1 it traded at the previous session.

It was gathered that the depreciation came on the back of an increase in the demand for forex at the window by customers, which pushed the market turnover up by 50.3 percent to $364.91 million from $242.76 million recorded on Thursday.

At the interbank segment of the market, which is the official window of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Naira traded flat against the American currency to close at N306.95/$1.