Naira Now N508/$1 at Unregulated FX Market as Pressure Eases

By Adedapo Adesanya

The value of the Naira against the United States Dollar at the black market has further strengthened to N508/$1, Business Post reports.

Last week, the local currency significantly depreciated to N525/$1 at the segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) banned the sale of forex to Bureau De Change (BDC) operators. The apex bank also said it was no longer issuing new licences to BDCs because their activities were killing the economy.

Instead, it said the weekly FX sales would be channelled to commercial banks, which will now sell forex to retail customers.

After the initial pressure on the Naira, all seems to be going back to normal as the domestic currency appreciated against the greenback at the unregulated FX market yesterday by N7.

On Monday, the Naira was exchanged against the American currency at N515/$1.

Also, at the same segment, the domestic currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling yesterday by N7 to sell for N705/£1 compared with the previous day’s N712/£1 and gained N2 against the Euro to trade at N598/€1 in contrast to N600/€1 it quoted a day earlier.

But at the interbank window, the local currency closed flat against the Dollar at N410.11/$1. It also maintained stability against the greenback at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment at N411.50/$1.

At the investors’ window, it was observed that the value of transactions reduced by $28.03 million or 24.3 per cent to $115.17 million from $143.20 million recorded on Monday.

Bears Return to Cryptocurrency Market

At the digital currency market yesterday, the bears were seen loitering around and this dampened the ecosystem as profit-taking spurred all the seven tokens tracked by Business Post to head southwards.

Bitcoin (BTC) went down by 5.1 per cent to trade at N19,355,696.09, Ethereum (ETH) recorded an 8.2 per cent depreciation to sell at N1,240,000.09, while Ripple (XRP) slid by 6.7 per cent to trade at N360.99.

Further, Dash (DASH) lost 7.9 per cent to trade at N76,000.03, Tron (TRX) fell by 1.1 per cent to trade at N32.93, Litecoin (LTC) depreciated by 0.4 per cent to N69,997.96, while the United States Dollar Tether (USDT) lost 0.2 per cent to sell at N512.99.