Naira appreciates further in black market

The pressure on the foreign exchange (FX) market is easing gradually as the naira on Wednesday appreciated to N1,715 per dollar on the parallel market.

This represents N15 gain compared to N1,730 traded the previous day on the market, also known as black market.

The naira also gained at the official market by 0.9 percent as the dollar was quoted at N1,658.36 on Tuesday as against N1,672.92 quoted on Monday at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX), according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange limited.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS) officially kicks-off on Monday.

EFEMS is an electronic platform introduced to tackle speculation and improve transparency in Nigeria’s FX market. It automatically matches buy and sell orders, promoting fairness and efficiency in FX trading. Financial experts have expressed optimism about EFEMS’ potential to address persistent challenges affecting the naira and Nigeria’s FX reserves.

The EFEMS system allows authorised dealers, including commercial banks, to place buy and sell orders in real time. Transactions are automatically matched based on predetermined rules, ensuring swift execution and real-time visibility for market participants and regulators.

Aminu Gwadabe, president of the Association of Bureaux De Change of Nigeria (ABCON), said EFEMS is designed to achieve price discovery, enhance oversight, and reduce speculation. “The platform intends to integrate participants for transparency and visibility as well as enhancing data collection. It will ensure that participants trading and dealing on the platform are visible and transparent,” he said.

Hope Moses-Ashike

Hope Moses-Ashike is an Associate Editor, Banking and Finance, with more than a decade of experience reporting on Nigeria’s financial system and broader economy. She closely tracks market movements, monetary policy decisions, company disclosures, regulatory actions, economic indicators, and global developments, and interprets what they mean for businesses, investors, policymakers, and households. Her reporting helps readers understand complex issues such as inflation trends, foreign exchange market dynamics, interest rate decisions, bank performance, and investment risks. She also covers major international events and periodically travels to Washington, D.C., to report on the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Her dedication to financial journalism has earned her multiple recognitions and invitations to high-level professional development programmes. She is an alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) in the United States and holds an Advanced Financial Journalism Certificate from the Press Association Training in London, UK. Her other notable achievements include completing the Lagos Business School CMC Programme, the Bloomberg Media Africa Initiative Programme, and a Master Class in Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa.