The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is planning to pump foreign exchange into the market this week as it told commercial banks Tuesday to fund their naira accounts to be able to participate in a currency intervention on the interbank market on Thursday.
Traders citing a message from the apex bank told Reuters that the CBN sold between $100 million and $150 million at its intervention last Thursday, but did not mention how much it will be selling on Thursday.
Although the value of the naira has remained static at N199.1 to the dollar at the interbank market since the beginning of the year, overnight rates which was 0.98 on Monday jumped to 3.4167 at the close of business Tuesday.
Last week, overnight lending rates rose from one per cent on Monday to 9.2917 per cent by Wednesday before dropping to 1.0467 per cent by the close of business on Thursday.
Loner tenured lending rates had remained relatively stable.
-Reuters
