Naira loses at NAFEX, steady in official, parallel markets
The Nigerian currency, Naira, at the end of business activities on Monday, lost slightly at Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX) window, but remained unchanged at both the official foreign exchange and unofficial markets.
At NAFEX, the Naira, closed trading at 360 to the dollar against 359.98 exchanged on Friday, which indicated a drop of 0.01 per cent, even though it opened at a better rate of 361.59 compared to 362.36 of the last trading day of last week, data obtained from FMDQ OTC has showed.
There was no improvement recorded in terms of turnover at the the autonomous FX window, as the volume traded steadied at $212.43 million the same turnover recorded on Friday but weaker than $236.97 on Thursday.
However, the local currency at the official forex market was seen at 305.70 the same rate it traded on Friday, after sold at 305.65 for three consecutive trading days within last trading week.
Also, at the parallel market, the local currency settled between 368 and 370, leaving no difference from the rate it has been trading from mid last week.
The naira, however, exchanged at 477 to the pound and 432 per Euro the same rate they were traded over the weekend at the parallel market.
It is worthy of note that that the unofficial market represent the most prevalent, although, there may be slight differences, higher or lower in the rate of the naira against each compared foreign currencies among the parallel market operators.
The apex lender recently took a step to unify its multiple exchange rates by allowing banks to use a currency window for investors when quoting the naira rather than the official rate. And the bank in its continued effort to sustain liquidity in the Forex Market had boosted the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) with $264.1m, getting the largest allocation from the total injected fund a week ago.
