Seventh OTC FX Futures Contract Matures and Settles on FMDQ. The 7th Naira-settled OTC FX Futures contract, NGUS JAN 25 2017, with notional amount $274.39mm, matured and settled on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 on FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange (“FMDQ” or “the OTC Exchange”); bringing the total value of contracts so far matured on the OTC Exchange to circa $1.80bn, and about $5.46bn worth of OTC FX Futures contracts traded so far. The contract, which stopped trading on Tuesday, January 17, 2017, was valued against Nigerian Foreign Exchange Fixing (“NiFEX”) Spot rate as published by FMDQ on January 25, 2017, with the associated clearing/settlement effected by the FMDQ-designated clearing agent, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC (NIBSS), in line with the FMDQ OTC FX Futures Market Operational Standards.

Whilst businesses, corporates, and other market participants desirous of hedging their FX exposures continue to key into this product, it is expected that the potential of the OTC FX Futures market will be further maximised during the course of the year. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the other hand, introduced a new contract, NGUS JAN 31 2018, for $1.00bn at $/₦281.50 to replace the matured contract and also repriced its quotes on the existing 1- to 11-month contracts.