BUSINESS ROUNDUP: CBN to arrest #AbokiFX founder; Naira heading to N600/$1; Other stories

• AbokiFX suspends updates on forex rate

• Nigeria’s transport fare increased by 50% in 12 months – NBS

• Naira heading to N600/$1, British pounds goes for N760/ £1

• CBN to arrest founder of AbokiFX for allegedly manipulating foreign exchange rates.

Summary:

The foreign exchange rate aggregator, Aboxi FX, has suspended the daily updates on foreign exchange rates in the country.

The development followed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announcement of its plan to investigate AbokiFX and its founder, Oniwinde Adedotun, for alleged foreign exchange rate manipulation.

However, in a statement on Friday night, the platform said it would no longer publish exchange rates at least for now, and expressed hope that the naira stabilised.

Nigerians paid 50 percent more for bus and motorcycle trips in August than they did in the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed on Friday.

The NBS latest report on transport fare covered intracity trips, intercity, the charge per person, airfare charges for specified routes, and journeys by motorcycle (Okada) among others.

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Fintech startups get CBN breather, Nigeria’s trade deficit hits N1.8trn; Other stories

According to the bureau, the average fare paid by commuters for bus journeys within the city increased by 4.98 percent month-on-month and 50.03 percent year-on-year to N430.58 in August from N410.17 the previous month.

After hitting a 48-year low against the US dollar in the black market on Monday, Nigerian currency has started a new journey to another unwanted record.

On Tuesday, at the unofficial window of the foreign exchange (FX) market, Naira depreciated by N7 against the U.S dollars to sell at N557/$1 compared with N550/$1 it traded on Monday.

Market observers are now concerned that, with the current rate of Naira depreciation to the dollar, history may repeat itself before the end of the year.

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emiefiele, has advised Nigerians to ignore the black-market exchange rate for the Naira to other foreign currencies, branding it, a window for unscrupulous individuals to milk the economy.

According to Emiefiele, Nigerians with legitimate dollar needs should use their banks not the black market as there is enough forex to meet the demands.

Emiefiele, while responding to questions after the MPC meeting on Friday, particularly fingered Olusegun Adedotun Oniwinde, the owner of abokifx, an online platform that collates exchange rates as an illegal trader who uses his website to manipulate the market.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Market cap up by 0.08% as investors gain N17bn

The Nigerian capital market rebounded from Thursday’s negative trading to post a 0.08 percent rise in the equity capitalization at the close of trading today.

The equity capitalization increased by N17 billion or 0.08 percent to close at N20.290 trillion compared to N20.273 trillion reported the previous day.

The All Share Index was up by 32.56 basis points and increased from 38, 911.31 to 38,943.87 on Friday.

Investors traded 155.09 million shares worth N1.94 billion in 2,906 deals on Friday.

On the tech scene this week, we covered milestones recorded by Releaf, an agritech startup and 54gene, a heathtech startup.

We also featured the rebranding story of bus-hailing startup, Plentywaka.

Aside the release of iPhone13 by American mobile phone manufacturer Apple, there was no major news around product launch for the week.

Remarks

Thanks for joining the roundup this week. See you next week for another serving. Don’t forget, for the latest news and updates from around the globe, keep reading Ripples Nigeria.