Naira Value Improves by 1.9% at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira value improved by 1.9 per cent or N28.34 against the United States Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), which is the official market, on Monday.

Data showed that the exchange rate finished yesterday in the spot market at N1,468.99/$1 compared with last Friday’s value of N1,493.37/$1 as observers await the outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) today.

Confidence in the FX market has waned but trends showed that the MPC meeting brings some momentum to the local currency. The outcome of the two-day event will be disclosed later today, including the much-anticipated hike in interest rate, which currently stands at 24.75 per cent.

Also, the Naira further improved its value against the Pound Sterling in the official market during the session by N33.15 to trade at N1,903.85/£1 versus N1,937.00/£1 and depreciated against the Euro by N32.38 to sell for N1,630.45/€1 versus N1,662.83/€1.

On Monday, the value of FX transactions increased by 93.3 per cent or $77.91 million to $161.41 million from the $83.50 million achieved in the previous trading day, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.

A look at the black market indicated that the Nigerian currency gained N20 against the American currency yesterday to settle at N1,500/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s value of N1,520/$1.

Business Post reports that cryptocurrencies surged on Monday at the possibility of the US government approving spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) became likely, increasing the chances of the new financial instruments being approved in the future.

Ethereum (ETH) surged by 17.7 per cent to trade at $3,659.40, Dogecoin (DOGE) recorded a 7.9 per cent rise to sell at $0.1636, Bitcoin (BTC) increased by 6 per cent to $71,205.90, Cardano (ADA) went up by 5.9 per cent to $0.4998, Litecoin (LTC) expanded by 5.5 per cent to $88.42, Ripple (XRP) increased by 4.7 per cent to $0.5377, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 4.1 per cent to $602.22, and Solana (SOL) jumped by 3.2 per cent to trade at $183.06, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.