By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Herbert Wigwe, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Nigeria’s top tier lender, Access Bank Plc said on Wednesday the devaluation of Nigerian’s local currency, the naira and falling oil prices may likely affect the bank’s proposed N68 billion rights issue according to a Reuters report.

“The naira devaluation will probably dampen foreign investor demand for Access Bank’s N68 billion ($385 million) rights issue. Falling oil prices would hurt appetite for the issue too,” he said.

According to him, local investors are expected to plug any hole and the bank still anticipates raising an “acceptable portion” of it.

The report says the CEO of Access Bank affirmed the bank had also been cleared of any wrongdoing after a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into the freezing of the bank’s share price in September.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on September 15, 2014 placed the shares of Access Bank on technical suspension and the NSE’s quotations committee on September 19 2014, announced that it has granted the bank final approval for its shares to be placed on technical suspension pursuant to anticipatory approval.

However, Wigwe, said the devaluation of the naira will have little or no impact on its business the report added.

The report quoted Wigwe as saying “It is little or nothing in terms of the implications to my financials just because of where my lending is.”

He said the reason is that the lender has most of its dollar facilities loaned to clients generating foreign currencies.

On Tuesday, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) devalued the naira by eight percent (8%) to N168 to a US dollar. The CBN also raised interest rates to 13 percent by 100 basis points in a view to check losses to its foreign reserves from defending the currency against weaker oil prices.