FY19: GTBank to Pay N2.50 Dividend as EPS Hits N6.96

By Adedapo Adesanya One of Africa’s biggest financial institutions, Access Bank, is close to finalizing a regulatory process to launch its first full banking service in Asia in the first quarter of 2024. This was disclosed by the chief executive of its holding company, Mr Herbert Wigwe, on the sidelines of the Africa Financial Industry Summit in Lomé, Togo, as per Semafor. The Nigerian lender’s plan to enter the Asian market is part of a wider global expansion target which includes a strategy to expand more deeply into Francophone Africa, build closer ties with North Africa, and across Europe where

By Adedapo Adesanya All bank accounts without Bank Verification Number (BVN) and National Identification Number (NIN) will from April 2024 have “Post No Debit (PND)” placed on them. This is the latest directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to financial institutions operating in the country. In a circular issued by the apex bank and sent to all deposit money banks (DMBs) on Friday evening, the CBN said all the BVN or NIN attached to and/or associated with AL accounts/wallets must be electronically revalidated by January 31, 2024. In the circular seen by Business Post, the central bank said

By Adedapo Adesanya  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would likely direct banks to increase their capital base in the coming months as part of a new policy push towards a $1 trillion Nigerian economy. The Governor of the apex bank, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, said this while delivering his keynote address at the 58th Annual Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) dinner in Lagos on Friday. The new CBN chief used the event to unveil the bank’s monetary policy thrust and economic outlook for 2024, following the cancellation of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting for the quarter. “We

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigerian bank, Union Bank, alongside energy company, Riverside LNG of Nigeria, have signed different agreements that involve a $500 million renewable energy pact and gas export between Nigerian and German entities. Union Bank and DWS Group signed a pact on cooperation in renewable energy while Riverside LNG of Nigeria and Johannes Schuetze Energy Import AG of Germany on the gas export partnership. President Bola Tinubu witnessed the signing of the two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in Berlin, Germany, at the 10th German-Nigerian Business Forum, according to Mr Ajuri Ngelale, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity.

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Students in junior secondary school (JSS) can now access curriculum-relevant content in Basic Technology, Business Studies, Basic Science and Mathematics on the uLesson mobile app. In March 2020, the Nigerian Ed-tech start-up launched its app with a Senior Secondary School library, covering Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. But based on requests from users not covered when the app was introduced by uLesson Education Limited, the management took a step to add new contents to the library and made them available to users from Tuesday, July 7, 2020. According to the founder and CEO of uLesson Education Limited,

By Aduragbemi Omiyale About 34 corporate organisations, including Excellence Hotel, Medilag Ventures, Jade Palace Chinese Restaurant, have been shut down by the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS). The Director of Legal Services of LIRS, Mr Seyi Alade, said the facilities were closed because they failed to remit personal income taxes of their employees to the state government and for the operators in the hospitality, they did not also remit consumption taxes to the appropriate quarters. Mr Alade further reiterated that “these companies deduct personal income taxes from their employees’ salaries at the end of each month, and charge consumption

By Dipo Olowookere Nigeria has been confirmed as host of the Africa Silver Cup 2019 Pool A Tournament taking place in June. Rugby Africa, the regulatory body for the game in Africa, said the tournament will take place in the city of Lagos. During the competition fixed for June 6 to 17, 2019, Nigeria will play host to Madagascar, Botswana and Ghana. With this development, Nigeria will use this huge opportunity to greatly increase Rugby’s awareness in the country. According to the schedule for the tourney, Cote d’Ivoire will play host Senegal, Mauritius and Rwanda in Pool B from June

By Adedapo Adesanya Paxful, a global peer-to-peer crypto marketplace, has announced the addition of Bitsika to the platform, expanding its range of local payment methods in Nigeria. The addition enables users to deposit Cedis, Naira, Dollars, CFA through the Bitsika app to facilitate easy transactions. Speaking on the partnership, CEO and co-founder of Paxful, Mr Ray Youssef said “As an organisation that constantly devises alternatives to ensure seamless and safe transactions for our users, we’re excited to add Bitsika as a payment option to the platform. “With this partnership, users don’t have to worry about the restrictions on the US

By Adedapo Adesanya The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) have taken to the social media to trade harsh words at each other over the collection of duties. The first salvo in the latest round of grievances was fired by the board chairman of NIPOST, Mrs Maimuna Abubukar, who wrote on Twitter that, “I am worried for NIPOST, having sleepless night because of NIPOST, we need the general public to come to our aid, FIRS stole our mandate.” She alleged further that, “FIRS are (sic) now selling stamps instead of buying from us,” adding that,

By Aduragbemi Omiyale The first capital market committee (CMC) meeting of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2021 will take place later this week. A statement issued by the agency disclosed that the 2-day meeting will commence on Thursday, April 15 and will end on Friday, April 16. According to the circular issued by SEC, the CMC meeting will hold via an online platform with the invited participants, including the Director-General of the commission, Mr Lamido Yuguda, informed of how to access it. On Friday, the apex regulatory agency in the Nigerian capital market will address the media on

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The lawmaker representing Oluyole Federal Constituency at the National Assembly, Mrs Tolulope Akande-Sadipe, is proposing a law increasing the validity of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to three years. The congresswoman pushed this bill for the extension of the validity for UTME results before the lower chamber of the parliament on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, during the plenary. She noted that the yearly examination was great and has been able to determine applicants who are prepared for the rigorous task of studying in the tertiary environment, but stressed that

By Adedapo Adesanya Investors at the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange lost N6.8 billion last week (Week 28) as the market’s capitalization closed at N519.90 billion compared to N526.65 billion it finished at the preceding week. The NASD unlisted securities index (NSI) also closed negative by 1.28 per cent to close the week at 707.77 points as against 716.96 points it ended a week earlier. This happened despite an increase in the amount of funds used to trade securities at the market during the week as well as a rise in the number of deals executed. Business Post reports that