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,…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

 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…

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.…