The Nigeria currency, Naira,
crashed further to 350 to a dollar in the interbank rate on Tuesday as the Central Bank of Nigeria tried to savage the situation.
The naira closed at 310.50
to the dollar following the CBN’s intervention. A single trade of $100,000 was
carried out at 350 to the dollar. A total of $6.86 million traded on Tuesday.
The naira has been under
pressure since the central bank floated the currency in June to allow it trade
freely on the interbank market. The currency has been hit by a plunge in oil
prices, Nigeria's economic mainstay, which caused foreign investors to flee
bond and equities markets.
The central bank last month
told international money transfer operators to pay dollar proceeds from
customer transfers into local commercial banks in naira, while selling the
dollars themselves to bureaux de change (BDC) outlets.
On Tuesday the bank pegged
the dollar transactions which banks can carry out with BDCs at $30,000 per week
and set a margin for the banks to sell dollar to currency outlets at not more
than 1.5 percent over the rate at which they bought.
No comments:
Post a Comment