Awe Tasks Nigerian Banks on Early Adoption of ESG Principles

By Adedapo Adesanya Pan-African Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider, Anchor, has announced its seed raise of $2.4 million to launch new products, invest in its licensing and compliance infrastructure, and evaluate expansion markets. The round was led by Goat Capital, with participation from FoundersX, Rebel Fund, and others, including Y Combinator. Byld Ventures, who led the pre-seed, also participated in the seed round. The funds raised will be allocated towards investing in its licensing and compliance infrastructure, launching its new products, and researching expansion markets. This will help Anchor realise its mission to drive financial access and prosperity by empowering more participants

By Adedapo Adesanya The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has unveiled a digital platform for the submission of Microfinance Bank (MFB) licence applications with effect from Monday, September 25. The apex bank made this known in a statement signed by its Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Isa AbdulMumin. “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is pleased to announce the unveiling of a new online platform for submission of microfinance bank (MFB) licence applications,” the statement released on Wednesday said. According to the statement, the new online platform is called the CBN Licensing, Approval and Other Requests Portal (CBN LARP) and

By Aduragbemi Omiyale The chief executive of CardinalStone Finance, formerly CSAdvance, Mr Ayoola Adeola, said the company would deliver enhanced financial solutions and empower its customers with financial flexibility. Mr Adeola said this while commenting on the recent change of name of the organisation, done because it intends to offer a comprehensive range of financing solutions to a diversified clientele, including SME businesses and high-net-worth individuals. CardinalStone Finance is the subsidiary of CardinalStone Partners Limited. The firm said the transition marks a pivotal moment in the group’s pursuit of becoming a world-class financial services firm, catering to the evolving needs

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Reaffirming its commitment towards development of the Nigerian debt capital market, FSDH Merchant Bank Limited (FSDH MB) has successfully raised N14.40 billion from its Series 3 and Series 4 Commercial Paper (CP). Collectively, the Series 3 and 4 represents FSDH MB’s second Issuance under its N30 Billion CP Programme established in 2016. Stanbic IBTC Capital Limited acted as Lead Arranger/Dealer while United Capital Plc and FSDH MB acted in the capacity of Co-Arrangers/Dealers, and FSDH MB as Issuing, Calculation and Paying Agent. The CP offer, which closed on 26 May 2017, was open to investors at a

By Adedapo Adesanya The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has assured Nigerians that its servers were not breached amid reports that the agency’s database was hacked. This was disclosed by the commission’s Director-General, Mr Aliyu Aziz, in a statement through its Head of Corporate Communications, Mr Kayode Adegoke, debunking the claims and assuring Nigerians that the agency’s servers are fully optimised at the highest international security levels. “Making this declaration in his new year message, the Director-General of NIMC, Engr Aliyu Aziz, said as the custodian of the foundational identity database for Africa’s most populous nation, NIMC has gone to

By Dipo Olowookere A total of $700 million is expected to be raised by the duo of Seplat Petroleum Development Company and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for a gas project scheduled to commence production in 2020. According to Bloomberg, the gas plant, Assa North-Ohaji South, is being constructed to reduce Nigeria’s reliance on oil. ANOH Gas Processing Company, which is owned by Seplat Plc and the Nigerian Gas Company, a unit of NNPC, will develop, build and operate the plant in Imo State. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest producer of crude oil, but the new project is one of

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigeria is working towards moving up the ranks of the first 70 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Business ranking by 2023. This was made known by the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha, during his address at the ‘Night with Maritime Stars’ of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Corporate Dinner and Merit Awards held in Lagos. He said the previous result showed that Nigeria moved up 15 places from 146 to 131 last year and that the country could only improve more in this. He said this development

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The battle for supremacy between two of the most powerful female politicians in Lagos; Mrs Kemi Nelson, the South West Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Mrs Jumoke Okoya-Thomas, the Women Leader of Lagos Chapter of the APC, appears to have taken a new dimension as the supporters of the two gladiators have resorted to physical combats. Reports from the women indicated that the matter has culminated into attacks and counter-attacks by their supporters and we gathered that these have led to body injury and destruction of properties. Just as pictures of Alhaja Abiodun,

By Adedapo Adesanya As COVID-19 cases nears 900 in Nigeria, Governors of the 36 states of the federation have agreed to restrict inter-state movement for two weeks. This is part of efforts to curtail the spread of the contagion. This decision was reached at a virtual meeting of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) held on Wednesday, April 22. The Governor of Ekiti State and NGF Chairman, Mr Kayode Fayemi, said the decision had been taken due to the increasing evidence of community transmission of the virus. In a communique issued at the end of the meeting, it was stated that,

By Adedapo Adesanya Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms are back online after a massive global outage on Monday plunged the services and the businesses and people who rely on them into chaos for hours. Facebook said late Monday that “the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change” and that there is “no evidence that user data was compromised as a result” of the outage. The company apologized and said it was working to understand more about the cause, which began around 04:38 p.m. Nigerian time on Monday, October 4. The outage didn’t exactly bolster Facebook’s

By Adedapo Adesanya OPay has announced suspending some of its business units in order to focus only on financial technology services. The Opera-backed startup said the business units that have been put on hold include all its ride-hailing platforms (ORide and OCar) as well as OExpress, its delivery business. This was disclosed in a press statement by the company released on Thursday. The firm blamed the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a recent regulation by the Lagos State Government banning commercial motorcycles in the state for its decision. The organisation said as a result of these factors, the management decided