Cardoso says FX market turnover now $500m daily without CBN participation

Nigeria’s foreign exchange (FX) market is now recording an average daily turnover of $500 million, often without intervention from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Governor Olayemi Cardoso has revealed.

Speaking at a press briefing following the 303rd CBN Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on Tuesday, Cardoso highlighted that the country’s FX market is increasingly driven by “willing buyers and willing sellers,” with transparent processes that allow participants to see market activity in real time.
“What we have in the foreign exchange market in Nigeria today is something unprecedented,” Cardoso said. “You have a market where buyers and sellers transact freely, and the process is open and highly transparent.”

The governor attributed the surge in FX market activity and stability to the introduction of the CBN’s electronic foreign exchange matching system (EFEMS), which has bolstered confidence among participants.
“It is for this reason that, on average, we see half a billion dollars in daily turnover, with many instances where the CBN is not even a participant,” Cardoso explained. “For those who remember how markets used to function, the central bank had to intervene for any activity to take place. That is now a thing of the past