Naira Depreciates at Official Market as CBN Prepares to End FX Sales to BDCs

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The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) on Friday, January 10, as pressure mounted ahead of the expiration of BDCs' access to the official FX market.

Specifically, the domestic currency weakened against the greenback by 0.12 per cent or N1.80 to sell for N1,543.03/$1, compared with the previous day’s N1,541.23/$1, according to data from the FMDQ Exchange.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had granted Bureaux de Change (BDC) operators access to purchase FX from the NAFEM through the Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS) platform for 42 days to help stabilise the Naira.

This window, however, is set to expire next week, on January 19.

On Friday, the Nigerian currency also lost ground against the Pound Sterling in the official market, depreciating by N30.78 to sell for N1,889.29/£1, compared with the previous day’s N1,858.51/£1.

However, it gained N5.48 against the Euro to finish at N1,583.81/€1, contrasting with Thursday’s rate of N1,589.29/€1.

Meanwhile, in the parallel market, the Nigerian Naira remained stable against the US Dollar during the trading session at N1,650/$1, according to data obtained by Business Post.

In the cryptocurrency market, the US economy added 256,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, topping forecasts for 160,000 and up from 212,000 in November (revised from an originally reported 227,000).

However, the readings came after a number of recent economic reports triggered a broad-market pullback across asset classes such as crypto as investors quickly scaled back the idea of a continued series of Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2025.

In the cryptocurrency market, Cardano (ADA) fell by 3.6 per cent to trade at $0.921, Solana (SOL) slumped by 2.8 per cent to $185.93, Ethereum (ETH) depreciated by 1.4 per cent to $3,233.27, Litecoin (LTC) lost 1.3 per cent to finish at $103.62, Dogecoin (DOGE) shed 0.5 per cent to sell at $0.3315, Bitcoin (BTC) waned by 0.2 per cent to $94,154.43, and Binance Coin (BNB) went south by 0.1 per cent to $693.30.

On the other hand, Ripple (XRP) jumped by 1.5 per cent to settle at $2.34, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) both sold flat at $1.00 each.