21 commercial banks authorized to bid for dollars in attempt to prop Naira-CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) asked 21 commercial banks to bid for $2 million each, as it did the previous day, selling dollars onto the foreign exchange interbank market to try to support the country’s ailing naira currency, dealers said.

The currency weakened early on Thursday to a fresh intraday low of 173.95 naira per dollar before central bank intervened. It then recovered to 172.60 naira but was still down 2.85 percent from the previous day’s close.

Despite interventions, the naira has continued to close well above the central bank’s trade band of 150-160 – a range it burst out of in May and which appears to have become merely cosmetic.