Nigeria’s central bank devalued the naira at one of its currency auctions, people familiar with the matter told MoneyCentral.
The devaluation happened when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold Dollars (USD) at the investors and Exporters (I&E) window to banks on Thursday.
Sources said the CBN asked that bids for foreign exchange be made at N410 naira per dollar, compared with N395/USD previously.
The latest devaluation comes after Governor Godwin Emefiele announced last year that the bank plans to unify its multiple exchange rates to improve the transparency of its currency-management system.
The CBN previously devalued the currency in March 2020 when it adjusted the official peg against the dollar to N360 from N307.
There’s another rate for investors and exporters known as the nafex window, which acts as a spot-rate for the naira.
The nafex which was introduced in 2017 as a way of wooing back foreign investors traded at N391.88 per dollar as at Wednesday, December 30th, according to FMDQ data.
The naira also trades widely in the black market, where it traded as low as N465 per dollar yesterday.
Investors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have long called for Nigeria to merge its multiple exchange rates.