Business News
Heritage Bank’s Ifie Sekibo addresses PSBs’ threat to lender banks
Managing Director and Chief Executive of Heritage Bank Limited, Ifie Sekibo has asserted that Payments Service Banks will pose no threats, neither will they be considered as competitors when they debut in Nigeria.
Managing Director and Chief Executive of Heritage Bank Limited, Ifie Sekibo has asserted that Payments Service Banks (PSBs) will pose no threats, neither will they be considered as competitors when they debut in Nigeria.
Sekibo stated that when payments service banks become operational in the country, they will be partners in the promotion of financial inclusion rather than being perceived to be in competition with traditional financial institutions.
About Payments Service Banks
Payments Service Banks is an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria in its bid to further deepen financial inclusion to accommodate the unbanked and help in attaining the policy objective of 20 per cent exclusion rate by 2020. PSBs are envisioned to facilitate high-volume low-value transactions in remittance services, micro-savings and withdrawal services in a secured technology-driven environment.
PSBs include stakeholders in the digital financial ecosystem, such as the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), commercial banks, mobile money operators and telecommunication companies.
Competition between PSBs and lender banks
Sekibo explained that PSBs are not lender like traditional banks, their obligation in the financial space is to assist lenders to bridge the gap in financial inclusion through technology.
He, however, admitted that competition will arise in the financial inclusion space, but boasted agency banking products are capable of withstanding the competition PSBs poses when they become operational.
“They are not lending banks. They are essentially going to assist us. For us it is an enabler for the financial inclusion, it is not necessarily a competition.
“Yes, it is competition to the extent that we will compete with them in the financial inclusion space, our agency banking products will compete with their payment platform, but we all have very good payment platforms. For most of us, our payment platforms have developed much more than they could even be able to compete with.”
Benefits of PSBs to lender banks
Despite acknowledging possible competition between PSBs and lender banks in Nigeria, Sekibo stated there’s benefit from the inclusion of PSBs in the promotion of financial inclusion. Adding that there is a need to have organisations that help the lower side of Nigeria’s economy.
“But for us, it is important that we have such other organisations that help the lower side of our economy where people put money under their beds or leave money in their stores and when fire comes, it destroys both the money and their investment and it is back to square one.
“We need to eliminate that; we need to bring in as much people under the formal platform so we can measure them. Today we don’t have good measurement for how much money is in circulation in Nigeria because we don’t even know. But if we can get these new institutions join us to expand the financial inclusion space we believe it is better for everybody and it is better for the economy.”
Business
Just in: NUPENG calls off strike for petroleum tanker drivers in Lagos State
The disclosure was made in a series of tweet posts by the SSA to the Lagos State Governor.
The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), has called off the strike action of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) in Lagos State which started earlier today.
This is contained in the communique which was signed by the Lagos State Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Olateru Odusote and the Deputy National President of NUPENG, Solomon Kilanko, on Monday, August 10, 2020.
The disclosure was made in a series of tweet posts by the Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on New Media, Jubril Gawat, through his official twitter handle.
Jubril disclosed that the state will set up a standing committee to discuss with the union on an ongoing basis to resolve the various issues as they arise. The state government will also review the timing restriction on movement of petroleum tankers within the next week.
FLASH: The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has called off its strike which commenced earlier today. pic.twitter.com/U7jearXLgx
— Gawat Jubril A. (@Mr_JAGss) August 10, 2020
Details later…
Business
FMDQ says newly signed CAMA bill will make Nigeria a powerful destination of capital
The new Bill introduces some corporate legal innovations aimed at boosting the ease of doing business.
FMDQ Securities Exchange has revealed that the new Companies and Allied Matters Bill 2020, that was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, would reposition Nigeria as a powerful destination of capital.
The newly signed Companies and Allied Matters Act. 2020 bill, repeals and replaces the extant Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990.
While making the disclosure in Lagos on Monday, August 10, 2020, the Group Chief Executive Officer of FMDQ, Bola Onadele, said the country’s financial market and the economy as a whole would receive the long-awaited boost to encourage economic development with the new CAMA.
READ MORE: President Buhari signs amended Companies Allied Matters bill
The new Bill introduces some corporate legal innovations aimed at boosting the ease of doing business in the country. Some of such innovation are reduction in filing fee and other reforms to encourage small and medium enterprises, provisions for the establishment of private companies with a single shareholder and limited liability partnerships and limited partnerships, among others.
According to a report from News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), FMDQ’s Onadele pointed out that the implementation of the new CAMA, would lead to a new wave of innovative developments in the Nigerian financial market and as well as improve the ease of doing business in the country.
Onadele said, ‘’With the increasing sophistication of the global financial markets comes the need for domestic markets to develop their architecture and infrastructures to support requisite advancement as well as align with international standards, and the new CAMA 2020 will position Nigeria and its capital market at par with its international counterparts.’’
“Chief of the several impactful provisions in the CAMA 2020, is the inclusion of netting and bankruptcy remoteness provisions which signal the birth of a new financial market in Nigeria.’’
“The CAMA 2020 commendably sets the tone for the actualisation of key innovations in the market, providing enabling legal backing for netting, bankruptcy remoteness and attendant regulatory frameworks for the smooth functioning of financial markets in Nigeria,” he said.
Going further, he said noted that these game-changing provisions would provide the remedy to critical legal deficiencies that were affecting the development of the financial markets.
Onadele disclosed that the netting provisions in the CAMA would address the credit risk challenges, operational and legal bottlenecks of gross settlement for spot and derivatives transactions.
He said the derivatives market would enhance market liquidity, improve price discovery, reduce risk capital charges and transaction costs as well as increase financial markets stability.
READ: It costs more to ship through Apapa port than Ghana’s Tema port, others –SBM
Nairametrics had 3 days ago reported that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the new Company and Allied Matters Bill 2020, which was recently passed by the National Assembly. The newly signed bill replaces the extant Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990 and introduced several corporate legal innovations geared toward enhancing the ease of doing business in the country.
Business
Nigeria to begin gold production in 2021 with the Segilola Gold Project
The gold produced is expected to become a part of Nigeria’s external reserve.
Nigeria is set to commence gold production in 2021 after the launch of the Segilola Gold Project in Osun state. This was disclosed by the Honourable Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, while taking stock of his first year in office as Minister.
In a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Ayodeji Adeyemi, Adegbite said that the project is expected to create about direct 400 direct jobs and 1000 indirect jobs along the gold value chain.
READ ALSO: Why Ajaokuta Cannot Make Steel
He added that once the project takes off, Nigeria would become a major gold producing country, a move that would hasten the diversification of the economy and reduce unemployment among the youth populace.
He noted that the government was creating an enabling environment across the gold value chain. According to him, “the international roadshows we have had in the past have borne fruits. Today we have Thor exploration in Osun State through the Segilola Gold project, which is projected to start producing in the first half of next year.”
The minister also noted that the government has licenced two gold refineries to refine gold to the London Bullion Market Association, LBMA, standard.
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About the Ajaokuta Steel Plant, Adegbite explained that the global travel restriction caused by the pandemic had prevented the technical experts from Russia from coming over to the plant to conduct an audit of the steel plant. He assured that this would be done as soon as the flight restriction was over, and there are hopes to revive the plant before the expiration of President Buhari’s tenure.
Why it matters
The take-off of gold production in Nigeria is expected to open up an industry centred around gold production, from equipment leasing and repairs, logistic and transport. Note that gold requires a specialized means of transport, security, insurance, aggregators among others. These, according to Adegbite, would ultimately create tens of thousands of jobs across the gold value chain.
READ ALSO: Mambilla Plant: FG disburses N700 million for power project
The minister further stated that Nigeria has mined, processed, and refined gold under the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative, PAGMI. The first batch of PAGMI gold was unveiled at a presentation ceremony to President Buhari on July 16, 2020.
The gold produced is expected to become a part of Nigeria’s external reserve after being purchased by the Central Bank.
“PAGMI will result in the creation of thousands of new mining and formalized jobs, leading to poverty alleviation for many households. Under the scheme, artisanal and small scale gold miners will earn more from higher productivity, better recovery rates through mechanization of operations, and better access to reliable geological information,” he said.
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