Naira Now N1,548.25 at Official Market, N1,560/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira sustained its gradual recovery against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, March 1, appreciating by 2.94 per cent or N46.86 to sell at N1,548.25/$1, in contrast to the N1,595.11/$1 it was traded on Thursday.

Also, in the spot market, the Nigerian currency improved its value against the Pound Sterling during the trading day by N90.13 to close at N1,956.06/£1 versus the previous day’s N2,046.19/£1 and against the Euro, it gained N76.39 to trade at N1,675.25/€1, in contrast to the N1,751.64/€1 it closed a day earlier.

The supply of foreign exchange (FX) to the official market remained elevated as the turnover grew to $296.00 million from $217.14 million on Thursday, representing an improvement by $78.86 million or 36.32 per cent.

The forex market found comfort as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continued to introduce measures to stabilise the ecosystem, with the latest involving the revocation of operating licenses of over 4,000 Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators, following the restart of weekly sales to them.

The regulator said the affected BDCs failed to give an account of returns in line with the guidelines, and compliance with guidelines, directives, and circulars of the CBN, particularly Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT), and Counter-Proliferation Financing (CPF) regulations.

Meanwhile, the domestic currency performed badly against its American counterpart on Friday in the parallel market, as it lost N60 to quote at N1,560/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,500/$1.

In the cryptocurrency market, there was a large positive movement across the benchmarked tokens tracked by Business Post.

The headliner was the memecoin, Dogecoin (DOGE), which gained 18.6 per cent to sell at $0.1426. This price action has consistently mirrored patterns observed in its past bull markets, suggesting a cyclical nature around the March-April period that investors continue to capitalise on.

Cardano (ADA) surged by 13.3 per cent to $0.7607, Litecoin (LTC) rose by 8.3 per cent to $90.20, Ripple (XRP) advanced by 6.1 per cent to $0.6295, Ethereum (ETH) added 1.8 per cent to sell for $3,438.49, Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 1.5 per cent to $412.42, and Bitcoin (BTC) increased by 1.4 per cent to $62,258.14.

On the flip side, Solana (SOL) recorded a 4.3 per cent slump to trade at $130.07, and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) lost 0.04 per cent to sell at $0.9996, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) traded flat at $1.00.