On Tuesday, the Naira made no movement against the US dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market, remaining at N461.50/$1.
This came as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, bowed to House of Representatives pressure to extend the deadline for returning old currency notes to banks in exchange for new ones.
The apex bank had stated that old N200, N500, and N1,000 currency notes not returned to the bank by February 10, 2023, would lose their value, but lawmakers argued otherwise, citing a section of the CBN Act that states that while such banknotes may lose their legal tender status, holders may still return them to the banks for a swap.
Mr. Emefiele appeared before lawmakers yesterday, after dodging them for a while, and said Nigerians could still return their old notes after the deadline. This piqued the lawmakers’ interest.
This development reduced system tensions and brought stability to the local currency, along with a decrease in demand for forex in the official market.
During the session, FX trades totaled $85.04 million, 36.4 percent or $65.45 million less than the previous session’s total of $150.49 million.
The situation was similar at the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) forex window, where the Naira showed no movement against the US dollar, trading at N759/$1.
In the parallel market, however, the Nigerian currency rose by N2 against the US dollar to settle at N750/$1, up from N752/$1 on Monday.
Unfortunately, the domestic currency fell 88 Kobo in the interbank window against the Pound Sterling to trade at N570.93/£1 versus the previous day’s N570.05/£1 and N1.09 against the Euro to settle at N502.51/€1, compared to the previous day’s N501.42/€1.
The cryptocurrency market has seen a significant green swing as investors await the Federal Reserve’s decision on a potential interest rate increase on Wednesday.
Cardano (ADA) increased by 4.4% to $0.3871, Ripple (XRP) increased by 3.7% to $0.4056, Litecoin (LTC) increased by 2.5% to $97.14, Bitcoin (BTC) increased by 1.2% to $23,158.47, Dogecoin (DOGE) increased by 0.9% to $0.0925, and Ethereum (ETH) increased by 0.8% to $1,584.00.
However, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 0.8% to $310.03, Solana (SOL) fell by 0.6% to $23.94, and Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.
