Again CBN Devalues Naira by N6 Ahead of World Bank’s $1.5bn Loan Request

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has once again devalued the Nigerian Naira by N6 to the United States Dollar, making it the third time the apex bank will adjust the Naira exchange rate this year.

The devaluation brings the CBN closer to actualising foreign exchange unification demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April before the $3.4 billion loan was approved.

This same condition was enforced by the World Bank as a prerequisite for approval of $1.5 billion loan request submitted by the Federal Government. The loan the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said she was positive it would be approved by the multilateral institution in the next meeting given that the Federal Government has met all the conditions for the said loan.

24 hours later, the apex bank devalued the Naira official rate by N6 from N379/US$ to N385/US$. While the International Money Transfer Service Operators (IMTOs), all authorised dealers, bureau de change operators and service providers were asked to add N6 across all rates.

The rate for IMTOs against the US dollar has now moved from N382 to N388. Meaning banks will now sell dollar to the CBN at N389, up from the previous N383 to us dollar.

Again, the Central Bank sale of dollar to the bureau de change operators was pegged at N390 to dollar, against the old N384 to US dollar.

The apex bank, therefore, directed the BDCs to sell at not more than N392 per dollar to end-users. The old rate was N386 to a US dollar.

The CBN circlar reads in part, “Weekly Exchange Rate For Disbursement of Proceeds of International Money Transfer Service Operators’ pegged IMTOs sale of dollar to banks at N388 to dollar; banks sale of dollar to CBN at N389 to dollar and CBN sale of dollar to BDCs at N390 to dollar. The BDCs are now expected to sale to end-users at not more than N392 to dollar and each BDC is entitled to buy $10,000 weekly”.