Black Market Naira To Dollar Rate Falls, USD Cost Rises In Official Market

The Naira to Dollar rate closed Monday’s official foreign exchange market at N463.5 kobo/$1, with the Nigerian currency depreciating by 0.10 per cent.

Investors and exporters were offered the Dollar at N0.5 kobo more than the N463 they bought the American greenback last week Friday, 19 May 2023.

According to the data obtained from the FMDQ Exchange, the highest the Dollar was sold in the official market on Monday was N467/$1, and the lowest it went for is N460/$1, but the exchange rate eventually settled at N463.5 kobo/$1 at the end of the session.

In spite of the hike in the foreign exchange rate between the Naira and the Dollar, traders transacted $106.84 million in the official market.

The value of foreign exchange they transacted rose by $15.03 million or 16.3 per cent in contrast to the $91.81 million transactions recorded at the previous trading session.

Also, the Dollar was put up for sale in the Bureau De Change window of the black market at a worth of N752.8/$1 on Monday.

This was disclosed by an aggregator of foreign exchange rates, Naira Rates, which also revealed that on Friday, traders were offered the Dollar at an average of N759.7 kobo/$1 rate. 

Prime Business Africa learnt that as of Monday, the gap between the official window and the black market depreciated to N289.3 kobo from N296.7 on Friday. 

While the gap between the two foreign exchange channels decreases, the rate difference is still enough encouragement for traders or profiteers to snub the official market for the parallel market. 

Recall that one of the reasons the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stopped selling foreign exchange to the black market is because of profiteers taking advantage of the wide gap between the two forex channels.