Nigerians Worry as Naira Sells for N653/$1 at P2P, N642/$1 at Parallel

By Adedapo Adesanya

The exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar in the various segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market in the country caused anxiety among Nigerians on Thursday.

In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the value of the Nigerian currency further depreciated by N7 or 1.09 per cent to settle at N653/$1 compared to the previous day’s N646/$1.

It was not a different case in the parallel market, where the domestic currency lost N19 or 3.05 per cent to trade at N642/$1 as against Wednesday’s N623/$1.

However, the Naira appreciated against the greenback in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the FX market by 58 Kobo or 0.14 per cent to sell for N426.00/$1 compared with N426.58/$1.

According to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, forex worth $180.83 million were transacted at the official forex market yesterday in contrast to the $144.03 million achieved a day earlier, indicating an increase of 25.6 per cent or $36.8 million.

In the interbank segment, the Nigerian currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N3.9 to trade at N495.99/£1 versus the previous day’s N492.09/£1 and against the Euro, it dropped N7.80 to close at N423.95/€1 compared with the preceding session’s N416.15/€1.

Meanwhile, in the cryptocurrency market, nine of the 10 digital coins monitored by Business Post closed bullish, with the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closing flat at $1.00.

Ethereum (ETH) gained 5.5 per cent to sell at $1,569.16, Solana (SOL) appreciated by 4.8 per cent to $42.52, Binance Coin (BNB) recorded a 4.2 per cent growth to sell at $264.74, while TerraClassicUSD (USTC) appreciated by 3.2 per cent to $0.3915.

In addition, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 3.0 per cent to trade at $57.73, Cardano (ADA) added 1.9 per cent to trade at $0.4937, Ripple (XRP) went up by 1.7 per cent to quote at $0.3631, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 1.3 per cent to $0.0694, while Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 0.3 per cent to $22,966.94.