Banking
Fidelity Bank Plans Gele Masterclass for Women March 30
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
On Monday, March 30, 2026, Fidelity Bank Plc will host a Gele Masterclass to help women build practical, income-generating skills, strengthen professional visibility, and accelerate career growth.
This event will be the second part of a series of masterclasses and support initiatives planned for March 2026 in commemoration of International Women’s Day under the theme Give to Gain.
On March 18, 2026, the lender, through its women-focused proposition, HerFidelity, hosted a masterclass on communication and presentation.
The session offered practical guidance on audience engagement, event moderation, confidence-building, and personal branding, with a strong focus on women looking to improve their public speaking and professional presence.
HerFidelity is positioning the session as a celebration of cultural expression and a marketable skill women can turn into a source of income.
In addition to the masterclasses, the bank will provide professional headshot sessions to help participants update their personal and professional profiles.
“At Fidelity Bank, we believe that empowering women economically creates an impact that extends beyond the individual. It strengthens families, grows businesses, and uplifts communities. That is why we have designed an elaborate plan to upskill women throughout this month.
“We want women to leave these sessions with practical tools they can apply immediately, whether that is speaking confidently in public, building a stronger personal brand, or learning a skill that can generate income,” the Divisional Head of Small and Medium-scale Enterprises Banking at Fidelity Bank, Ms Ugochi Osinigwe, said.
Earlier this month, the bank reaffirmed its commitment to women’s economic empowerment with the signing of strategic MoUs with partner organisations at the launch of its Give Her Power initiative on March 5, 2026.
The collaborations, anchored on the bank’s HerFidelity Apprenticeship Programme, are designed to expand access to vocational training, business support, and sustainable enterprise opportunities for women across multiple sectors.
As part of the initiative, Fidelity Bank is distributing 1,000 sewing and grinding machines to empower women-led microbusinesses across Nigeria.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Sewa Capital Investment, an investment banking and financial advisory firm focused on supporting high-growth businesses across Africa, has made a strategic investment in Mathesis Analytics, a Nigerian financial technology company providing Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered credit decisioning infrastructure.
The investment is expected to support Mathesis Analytics’ expansion drive for its AI-powered credit infrastructure in Nigeria.
Currently, Nigerian lenders face a critical structural gap: the fragmentation of verifiable consumer data makes it difficult to accurately price risk at scale. Mathesis directly addresses this bottleneck by aggregating disparate transactional and behavioural data into a real-time measure of creditworthiness.
The investment will support product development, institutional integrations, expansion of Mathesis’ lender network, and the strengthening of its data and technology infrastructure, a statement from the fintech firm stated.
By embedding this infrastructure, financial institutions can expand underwriting capacity, support more accurate risk-based lending decisions, and reach new market segments without compromising established risk thresholds.
For Mathesis Analytics, this investment represents an important milestone in its strategy to build Africa’s next-generation credit infrastructure to drive true financial inclusion.
Mathesis has already supported more than 8 million loans for over 2 million unique borrowers in Nigeria, providing a substantial operating base from which to deepen institutional adoption and expand into additional markets.
The company will leverage Sewa Capital’s backing to accelerate the expansion of its institutional footprint.
“At Sewa Capital, we are interested in businesses building the infrastructure that enables African economies to allocate capital more efficiently and inclusively.
“Mathesis Analytics is addressing a fundamental constraint in credit markets: the information gap that limits lenders’ ability to assess risk confidently.
“Its technology has the potential to expand responsible access to credit in Nigeria and, over time, across Africa. We are pleased to support the team through its next phase of growth,” the Managing Director of Sewa Capital, Ms Angela Jide-Jones, commented.
The chief executive of Mathesis Analytics, Mr Winston Osuchukwu, in his reaction, said, “Credit inclusion begins with information visibility.
“Partnering with Sewa Capital accelerates the rollout of our infrastructure; equipping a wider network of lenders with the capabilities required to accurately evaluate risk and ultimately deliver credit services to previously excluded populations across the continent.”
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.
