Business
Forex: CBN To Strengthen Market With More Dollars
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has promised to strengthen the market with the injection of more dollars into the market to stabilize the naira against other major currencies.
This was posted on the CBN website last Monday, by its spokesman, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, who said that the nation’s currency will continue to gain traction following the effective implementation of the bank’s foreign exchange policy.
Okorafor pointed out that the apex bank has injected well over $1billion into the foreign exchange market with the latest being $150 million ploughed into the market on Wednesday last week adding that the bank’s decision had made the naira rebound positively in recent weeks.
He assured Nigerians that the US dollar is set to crash further in the coming weeks as the apex bank’s management has concluded plans to further inject more forex into the market to meet the yearning requests of genuine customers at anytime.
The CBN spokesman restored the determination of the bank to ensuring that the authorized dealers get sufficient supply of forex to meet the demands of authentic customers of the nation’s commercial banks, stressing that over $1 billion has been offered by the CBN to the interbank market.
He emphasized that CBN would restore monetary stability into the forex market to enable individual customer freely and easily access forex to address their challenges and business concerns, adding that summary of the CBN intervention in the interbank market in recent period had shown an exchange rate of N316 per $1.
He explained that the CBN is poised to sustain forex supply to different categories of users of foreign exchange promising that the challenges being faced by both small and big end users would be overcome with the bank’s new policies.
He solicited the understanding and cooperation of Nigerians and other business stakeholders to the bank’s policies in forex.
Philip Okparaji
Banking/ Finance
Ripple Survey Reveals Appetite for Digital Assets
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
