CBN Ready to inject liquidity into the Interbank market

 

The Central Bank of Nigeria has ruled out a possible naira devaluation, urging people not to panic about the government shifting its bank accounts to the central bank.

In an interview with Reuters, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele said he was ready to inject liquidity if needed into the interbank market,

which dried up this week following a directive to government departments to move their accounts into a "Treasury Single Account" at the apex bank.

Amid confusion over implementation of the policy, overnight interbank lending rates spiked to 200 percent this week, but Emefiele denied the policy had provoked a liquidity crisis.

Emefiele said less than one trillion naira would be moved into the single account, while emphasizing maintaining the naira currency - which has dived in the past year due to a collapse in oil revenues - at its current level of 197 to the dollar.