UBA partners LCCI for 2019 Lagos International Trade Fair

Promises 20% discount on registration Pan African financial services institution, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, and the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), have partnered to organise the 2019 edition of the Lagos International Trade Fair.   The fair, which holds between November 1 and 10, 2019, is the 33rd edition and is expected to provide an avenue for networking and other business opportunities that will assist to catapult business activities in Africa’s largest and busiest city, Lagos and in Nigeria.   UBA, which is the headline partner, will…

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Report: Emefiele, fund managers meet in London

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, met fund managers in London last week to lure investors back into the local naira currency, Reuters reported two banking sources as saying yesterday. Emefiele told investors that currency stability would continue, a fund manager and a banking source said. The naira weakened to 364 last week as oil prices fell. The naira has come under pressure at the investors and exporters forex window in recent weeks due to a decline in oil prices as well as a drop in yields,…

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Fidelity Bank adopts open banking

Fidelity Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Open Technology Foundation (OTF) for the adoption of a standard Application Programming Interface (API) for its operations as a financial institution. Open banking is a system that provides a user with a network of financial institutions’ data through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). The Open Banking Nigeria Standard defines how financial data and services should be created, shared and accessed. By relying on networks instead of centralisation, open banking helps customers to securely share their financial data with other…

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CBN:  Bad debt ratio drops to 9.36%

The Non-Performing Loan (NPL) ratio in the country’s banking system dropped to single digit at 9.36 per cent in June 2019 for the first time in about three months, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said. Deputy Governor in charge of Financial System Stability at the apex bank, Mrs. Aishah Ahmad, stated this in her personal statement for the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting last month, which along with other MPC members’ personal statements were posted on the CBN’s website yesterday. The MPC members stated that the continuous decline in banks’ NPL…

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Sterling Bank’s Cafe One hosts 2019 Caine Prize winner

Cafe One, Nigeria’s first digital, hybrid experience centre by Sterling Bank Plc, recently hosted award winning Nigerian writer, Lesley Nneka Arimah, in collaboration with Farafina Books. She is the author of a collection of short stories titled, “What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky,” which won the 2019 Caine Prize for Africa. Café one, dubbed as a place where innovation meets community, was designed for comfort and equipped to provide banking services with ease and convenience. The space boasts of serving the best coffee and pastries in Lagos,…

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Turkey secures $1bn from China swap to boost reserves

The People’s Bank of China has transferred $1 billion worth of funds to Turkey in, Beijing’s biggest support package ever for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Bloomberg reported at the weekend. The cash infusion boosted Turkey’s foreign reserves around the time of Istanbul local elections that had left international investors fretting about the country’s political and financial stability. The Chinese funds also show Turkey is making headway in its efforts to diversify sources of foreign investment amid unprecedented tensions with the West. Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak has said the…

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Verve, Discover Global Network partner on ‘Global Card’

Interswitch’s Verve and Discover Global Network, the payments brand of Discover, have launched the Verve Global Card that will be accepted in more than 190 countries and territories. The event which took place in  New York City, saw  senior executives from First Bank, Access Bank and Fidelity Bank purchasing  various items from Swarovski using their Verve Global Card on the Discover Global Network. The agreement with Discover Global Network will facilitate new international and cross border transaction capabilities for Verve Global Card customers, meeting the needs of its increasingly global customer base. Holders…

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EMVCo releases proposed changes for payment systems

 Payment card standards body, EMVCo, at the weekend released proposed specification changes for payment systems to accommodate longer number on credit and debit cards for identifying the card issuer. The issuer identification number, as it is called, is the first part of the 10- to 19-digit primary account number that appears on the front of debit or credit cards and identifies the card issuer. Currently, the Issuer Identification Number (IIN) consists of the first six digits of the Personal Area Network (PAN) but will transition to being eight digits long…

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Experts:  External reserves will slide to $43bn

The country’s external reserves have been on a downward trend in recent weeks mainly due to decline in oil prices. Data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shows that the reserves stood at $44.5billion as at August 14, 2019 compared with $45billion a month earlier. In a report obtained by Newsfieldglobal at the weekend, the FDC also forecast that the country’s oil revenue would drop to $9-$10billion in the third quarter of this year even as it predicted that oil prices will hover around $60-$62 in this month.…

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Ecobank Nigeria rids Lagos of 2m plastic bottles

Ecobank Nigeria has  successfully  removed  over two million plastic bottles in exchange for cash from the streets of Lagos. The campaign, which started in May, targets to remove at least four million bottles from the environment.it is part of the bank’s environmental sustainability campaign. Ecobank had in May told Lagos residence to exchange  plastic bottles for cash at designated location  across the state. Commenting on the initiative and success achieved so far,  the Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan, stated that the lender was committed to support the sustenance of the environment…

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