The naira has been under pressure in the last few weeks and on Monday it crashed against the dollar to N173.20 at the interbank market, causing further panic in the financial sector.
Expectedly the Central Bank has been running from pillar to post in a bid to find some stability for the currency. Here are some of the drastic measures the CBN is now taking after a series of policies that have in effect either failed to stop the naira from falling or perhaps slowed it down from crashing further.
1. The Central Bank of Nigeria is reported to have called chief executive officers of banks to a meeting in Abuja in a bid to save the naira from further crashing.
2. The report suggest the the CBN is trying to employ moral suasion now since efforts to prop up the naira in the last few weeks have not brought any result. The CBN is trying to meet the bank CEOs to persuade them to take measures and actions that will bring the naira up.
3. The CBN believes that some banks are advising their customers that have major future obligations to bring them forward because they don’t know what the exchange rate will be in January. This is in effect is creating additional demand on the dollar further depreciating the naira.
4. They now want them to assure their customers that nothing will happen to the naira in the near future.
5. The CBN, it was learnt, asked banks to bid for $2m each in a move to shore up the local currency, but the lenders avoided the forex auction as the central bank was restricting the re-sale margins to curb speculation.
Part of this article was culled from The Punch
