Banking
AfDB Gives FCMB Fresh $50m to Finance Women-owned Businesses
By Adedapo Adesanya
An additional $50 million line of credit has been given to First City Monument Bank (FCMB) by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to finance small and medium-sized and women-owned businesses.
FCMB will use the loan to expand lending activities that will boost the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery and drive more inclusive and climate-resilient growth. It will focus on enterprises in Nigeria’s agribusiness, manufacturing, healthcare, and renewable energy sectors.
The bank is also providing a complementary technical assistance package of $285,000 under its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative.
The grant funding, provided by the Women Entrepreneurship Finance Initiative (We-Fi), will support enhancing financial literacy, business management, and entrepreneurial skills for women-led businesses, as well as strengthening FCMB’s monitoring and reporting functions.
The bank’s support of FCMB will advance the objectives of the AFAWA initiative, which seeks to improve gender inclusivity by enhancing access to finance for women entrepreneurs.
Speaking on this, AfDB’s Director General for Nigeria, Mr Lamin Barrow, said, “The Bank’s support to FCMB will advance the objectives of the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative, which seeks to improve gender inclusivity by enhancing access to finance for women entrepreneurs.
“With at least 30 per cent of the funding from the Line of Credit to be channelled to women-owned businesses, FCMB will be better positioned to scale up the deployment of its tailored products and services to meet the needs of SMEs and women-owned businesses.”
On her part, FCMB’s Managing Director, Mrs Yemisi Edun, said, “We are happy to collaborate with the African Development Bank to create expanded opportunities and accelerate post-COVID-19 pandemic business recovery for SMEs and women-owned businesses in Nigeria through funding and technical support. We are intentional about collaboration that upskills entrepreneurs, drives industrialisation and creates economic value, wealth, and employment for Nigerians.”
She said that the agreement affirmed the African Development Bank’s confidence in FCMB’s growth potential and corporate governance structures.
The project is expected to improve access to finance for at least 50 enterprises: 29 in the agribusiness and manufacturing sectors, 9 in renewable energy, and 13 in the healthcare industry. It will create a minimum of 1000 jobs and enable roughly 14 female entrepreneurs to gain access to long-term funding.
AfDB anchors its current Nigeria strategy on two pillars: supporting infrastructure development and promoting social inclusion through agribusiness and skills development.
Its current Nigeria portfolio comprises 53 operations with a total value of $4.5 billion. Thirty of these operations, with a value of $2.7 billion, are sovereign operations; the 23 non-sovereign operations have a value of $1.8 billion.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Eligible innovators, financial institutions, Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), financial technology (fintech) companies, and technology firms have been invited to apply for the second cohort of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Regulatory Sandbox Programme.
A statement signed by the acting Director of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Department of the apex bank, Mrs Hakama Sidi-Ali, disclosed that entries opened on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, and will close on Monday, August 31, 2026.
Cohort 2 of the initiative introduces two dedicated testing tracks to support emerging technologies with the potential to strengthen Nigeria’s financial system while upholding high standards of consumer protection, financial stability, and market integrity.
According to the central bank, the two tracks are VASP and Data-Enabled Financial Services (Non-VASP).
VASP track is to support innovative virtual asset, stablecoin, payment, settlement, custody, wallet, and related financial infrastructure solutions that require supervised live testing, while the non-VASP track supports innovations that leverage secure digital infrastructure and permission-based data sharing to improve financial inclusion, payments, credit, risk management, operational efficiency, and consumer outcomes.
The CBN Regulatory Sandbox provides a controlled environment in which eligible participants may test innovative financial products, services, business models, and enabling technologies under the supervision of the CBN.
The programme enables the CBN and innovators to engage constructively throughout the testing process, supporting regulatory learning while encouraging responsible innovation that benefits consumers and the wider financial system.
Eligible organisations whose proposed innovations fall within the programme’s scope are encouraged to apply.
Applications will be assessed based on the level of innovation, readiness for controlled live testing, potential consumer or market benefit, governance arrangements, risk management capability, and the suitability of the proposed testing plan.
Successful participants will undertake supervised testing within clearly defined parameters agreed with the CBN, including appropriate safeguards for consumer protection, operational resilience, cybersecurity, and regulatory reporting.
The central bank emphasised that participation in the scheme does not constitute a licence, authorisation, or approval to operate outside the approved testing parameters.
It noted that the Sandbox is intended to facilitate responsible experimentation, strengthen regulatory engagement, and support evidence-based policy development in line with the CBN’s statutory mandate.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The international spending limit on the GTBank Naira card has been increased by the financial institution to $40,000.
This information was revealed by the lender in an email to customers on Tuesday, August 11, 2026.
The banking subsidiary of GTCO Plc disclosed that the new offshore spending limit is for a quarter.
This development comes as the Nigerian foreign exchange (FX) market is witnessing stability against the United States Dollar.
The forex volatility experienced a few years ago has eased, allowing companies and others to plan within a reasonable exchange rate band.
“The Dollar limit on your GTBank Naira Card is now $40,000 quarterly,” the tier-1 commercial bank said in the message sighted by Business Post.
Improvement in forex liquidity in the domestic FX ecosystem has allowed Nigerians to use their local cards to complete financial transactions on foreign platforms, which was not possible a few years ago because of Dollar scarcity and arbitrage.
At the official market on Tuesday, the exchange rate closed at N1,364/$1. It was exchanged at N1,367/$1 at the GTBank FX desk and N1,395/$1 at the parallel market.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) is investigating the University of Lagos, Lotus Bank, and Hackerbella Limited over alleged violations of data protection laws.
The probe followed public complaints alleging that students’ personal data was used to open bank accounts without a lawful basis.
The NDPC disclosed this in a statement signed by its Head of Legal, Enforcement and Regulations, Mr Babatunde Bamigboye, on behalf of the commission.
According to the commission, its chief executive, Mr Vincent Olatunji, directed the investigation team to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the circumstances surrounding the collection, use and disclosure of the affected students’ personal data.
The investigation will also determine the roles and responsibilities of the university, the bank, and the information technology solutions firm in the alleged data processing activities.
The NDPC said the probe would assess the compliance obligations of the three organisations under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, as well as the potential risks posed to the rights and freedoms of the affected students.
The commission said the investigation would cover several areas, including Data Protection Impact Assessments, the lawfulness and transparency of credit scoring or profiling activities, automated decision-making systems, privacy notices and data-sharing arrangements.
It will also examine the lawful bases for processing the students’ information, data minimisation, purpose limitation, retention policies and the adequacy of technical and organisational safeguards for protecting data subjects’ rights.
The commission stressed that institutions handling the personal information of students, staff and other members of their communities have a greater responsibility to ensure such data is properly protected.
“Institutions entrusted with the personal data of students, staff and other members of their communities have a heightened responsibility to ensure that such data is processed lawfully, fairly, transparently and securely,” the NDPC said.
The commission also warned educational institutions that have yet to comply with its existing data protection directives to take immediate steps to meet the required standards.
“Accordingly, the NDPC warns educational institutions that are yet to comply with its existing data protection compliance directives to do so immediately,” the statement added.
