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The United States International Development Finance Corporation says it has invested $530m in Nigeria’s agriculture, financial institutions, critical infrastructure and health projects.
The Regional Director for Africa at DFC, Vibhuti Jain, made this known on Wednesday while speaking at a virtual conference on available US project financing opportunities for Nigerian companies organised by the American Business Council. She said the development bank was increasing its focus on lower-income countries like Nigeria and had $29.5bn in total active commitments in countries where it operates. According to her, the bank plans to double this investment to reach $60bn… More details through: https://punchng.com/us-development-bank-invests-530m-in-nigerian-projects/
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Nigeria’s total number of bank accounts increased to 160.04million at the end of May 2020 from 143.19million in March, even though Coronavirus lockdown restriction imposed by government, which significantly impacted banking operations in major cities across the country, was in place during the period, findings by New Telegraph show.
According to the "Industry Customer Bank Account Data" for the months of March, April and May 2020, released by the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), at the weekend, the total number of bank accounts, which stood at 143.19 million at the end of March, increased slightly to 143.38 million in April and went up to 160.04 million at the end of May. This means that the total number of bank accounts increased by 16.85million (11.8 percent) during the period. Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, and national capital, Abuja, had first entered lockdowns to tame the spread of Coronavirus pandemic on March 30… More details through: https://www.newtelegraphng.com/lockdown-nigeria-records-11-8-rise-in-bank-accounts/ Financial transactions through mobile phones took a great leap in the first five months of this year as it rose by 365 percent. The latest statistics released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) revealed that Nigerians transferred a total of N853.7 billion between January and May this year through their mobiles.
In the same period of 2019, the value of mobile transfer was N183.7 billion. The five-month mobile transfer value for this year also surpassed the value for the entire 12 months of 2019, which stood at N828 billion. According to the NIBSS data, the volume of the mobile inter-scheme transactions also rose by 561 percent from 6.2 million recorded in the first five months of 2019 to 41 million in the same period of 2020… More details through: https://www.newtelegraphng.com/cashless-mobile-spending-rises-by-365/ Nigeria’s biggest insurer is seeing more demand from the government and employers of health workers for life cover as the coronavirus pandemic starts taking hold in Africa’s most populous country.
“Health workers are demanding it, other state governments and municipalities that didn’t have it before are now looking at it differently,” Leadway Assurance Co. Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Tunde Hassan-Odukale said in an interview in Lagos. "People who were not doing group life insurance before are now looking at it on a corporate basis." Sales of group life policies have jumped 10% this year, and the trend is expected to continue with Covid-19 cases in Nigeria still on the rise, he said. This may help to counteract pressure on the firm's retail business, where individual life policies could be hit by a slowdown in economic activity because of lockdown measures to curb the spread of the disease… More details through: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-15/swiss-re-backed-nigerian-insurer-sees-jump-in-sales-on-virus The insurance sector grew by 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2020 financial period, according to the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics on the 2020 Q1 Gross Domestic Product report.
Part of the report read, “The finance and insurance sector consists of the two subsectors, financial institutions and insurance, which accounted for 87.02 percent and 12.98 percent of the sector respectively in real terms in Q1 2020. "As a whole, the sector grew at 23.96 percent in nominal terms (year-on-year), with the growth rate of financial institutions as 27.26 percent and 5.64 percent growth rate recorded for insurance. "The sector growth rate was higher than what was recorded in Q1 2019 by 27.92 percent points and 0.63 percent points higher than the preceding quarter… More details through: https://punchng.com/insurance-sector-recorded-5-6-growth-in-q1-says-nbs/ The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday reported that Nigeria attracted $5.85 billion capital importation in the first quarter of 2020, representing about 31.19 percent decline from the $8.51 billion total inflows recorded in the corresponding period of last year.
However, the latest capital importation report released by the official statistics producing agency for Q1, inflows, represented an increase of 53.97% when compared to how much was received in Q4 2019. When analysed based on capital inflow by type, the report indicated that in the quarter under review, the largest capital inflows came from portfolio investment, which accounted for 73.61 percent or $4.31 billion… More details through: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/nigeria-attracted-5-85bn-capital-inflows-in-q1-2020.html Ten Deposit Money Banks reported fresh investments valued at $121.5m (N46.2bn) in software in the first three months of the year in order to deliver hitch-free digital banking services to customers.
Findings by The PUNCH showed that in the first quarter of the previous year, the same banks spent N3.76bn on computer software they developed and purchased outside the country. This is an increase of 1129 percent in software investment compared with the same period in 2019. The banks surveyed are Access Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, First City Monument Bank Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, and Zenith Bank Plc, Others are Union Bank Plc, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (the parent company of Ecobank Nigeria) and Wema Bank Plc… More details through: https://punchng.com/banks-investments-in-software-rise-to-n46-2bn/ The total assets of banks rose to $110.5bn (N42.2tn) as of the end of February 2020.
A member of the Monetary Policy Committee, Dr. Rafindadi Sanusi, disclosed this in his presentation during the last MPC meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He said, “Total assets of the industry have grown from N38.57tn in November 2019 to N42.89tn in February 2020.” The rise in the banks' assets shows an increase of 11.2 percent within a period of three months, between November 2019 and February 2020… More details through: https://punchng.com/banks-total-assets-rise-11-2-to-n42tn/ Bloomberg has ranked the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as the second best performing primary equity in the last one month. The ranking, which covers April 4 to May 5, shows that the local bourse rallied by 16.395 per cent in the 31 days period.
The ease of the lockdown has significantly added to improved trading on the local bourse as the total market capitalisation stands at N12.53 trillion as at the close of transaction on Friday. Argentina’s flagship index, S&P Merval TR ARS, led the chart with a price return of 35.17 per cent in the month under review… More details through: https://www.newtelegraphng.com/bloomberg-ranks-nse-second-best-performing-index/ Nigeria's central bank said on Monday it would resume cheque clearing, just as the country prepares to gradually ease coronavirus lockdowns in Abuja and Lagos.
“Cheque clearing instruments will be allowed to pass through the clearing system with effect from April 28, 2020,” a circular stated. It added the decision came after it reviewed the need for cheque clearing as part of a “safe and efficient payments system,” and did not cite the easing of lockdowns… More details through: https://af.reuters.com/article/nigeriaNews/idAFL5N2CF7O9 |
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