Nigeria’s central bank continues intervention in forex market with $210m

Nigeria’s central bank, the CBN, said on Tuesday it had intervened in the country’s foreign exchange market with as much as $210 million. It is at least the third week consecutively that the apex bank would be intervening in the market.

The bank said in a statement that it offered the sum of $100 million to authorized dealers in the wholesale segment of the market, another $55 million to the Small and Medium Scale
Enterprises (SMEs) segment, while the sum of $55 million was apportioned to invisibles such as tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA).

Isaac Okorafor, acting director, corporate communications department, while confirming the intervention said the CBN had capacity to continue to sustain the foreign exchange intervention.

He urged authorized forex dealers to help sustain the confidence in the foreign exchange market by continuing to honour requests from customers with genuine needs.

Last Friday May 4, 2018, the CBN last Friday, intervened in the Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) to the tune of $349.34 million. That same week on Tuesday, it intervened with $210 million just as it has done again this week.

The domestic currency, the naira, on Tuesday, stayed stable at the forex market, exchanging on average at N362 to $1 at the bureaux de change (BDC) end of the market.