Exchange rate gap between official, black markets widens above N100 as CBN's convergence plan gets tougher

The exchange rate gap between the official and black markets for the United States dollar is now above N100, checks by Legit.ng show.

At the Investors' and Exporters’ window of the official market, the value of the naira closed at N768.60 to a dollar.

This is a 3.9% or N28.52 loss compared to the N740.08/$1 it exchanged a day before at the same official window.

This happened as the forex transaction in the market declined by 72.8% or $64.62 million to $88.66 million compared to $153.28 million a day earlier.

Legit.ng observed that participants, including banks, foreign investors, and manufacturers, during the intra-day trading at the I&E window on Thursday, sold the dollar for as high as N860.

Black market naira to dollar rate

In the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) segments, the rate used by cryptocurrency platforms, the naira's value dropped by N22 to close at N872.00/$1 from N850.00/$1 a day earlier.

This implies an exchange rate gap margin of N103.4 compared to the closing official rate of N768.60 on Thursday.

But in the black market, the domestic currency gained N1 against its American counterpart to sell at N869/$1 versus the midweek session’s exchange rate of N870/$1.

However, the exchange rate gap is still above N100. The widening exchange rate gap is a real source of worry for the Central Bank of Nigeria, which had hoped that floating the naira would help create convergence.