The naira tumbled to 402 at the parallel market on Wednesday, a day after the Central Bank of Nigeria banned nine banks from the foreign exchange market over their failure to remit $2.334 billion to the Federal Government Treasury Single Account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria. The local currency had closed at 397/dollar on Tuesday.
At the interbank market, the naira closed at 315.93/dollar, lower than 305.5 it recorded on Tuesday. The naira, which hit a fresh record low since the CBN floated the currency on the official interbank market in June, first touched 400/dollar at the black market this month.
On the interbank market on Wednesday, no trades were posted until three minutes before the end of the session, when the CBN which has been reducing its dollar sales, intervened, Reuters reported quoting traders.