by Azeez Adeniyi

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday released additional $180m in order to increase liquidity in the foreign exchange market.

This was disclosed by the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor.

He said $100 million was released into the wholesale forwards segment of the market, while $80m was for personal demands like medical bills, school fees, etc.

Okoroafor stated, “In keeping with its determination to increase liquidity in the foreign exchange market, the Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday released another $100m into the wholesale forwards segment of the market and pumped an additional $80m into the banks specifically for the settlement of dollar demands for school fees, medicals and Personal Travel Allowance, among others.”

Okoroafor promised that the apex bank will continue supplying  forex to the market.

This will be the third time the apex bank is intervening in the forex market within a week.

The CBN had earlier offered $500m for sale to banks but they could not provide enough naira to buy their bids.

The second intervention was when the CBN released a total of $221.3m was released by the apex bank to 16 banks.

Okoroafor gave an assurance that the CBN would continue to make interventions, based on qualified bids from banks on the requests of their customers.

Azeez