UBA Obtains $100m Loan from Chinese Bank to Fund SMEs

By Dipo Olowookere The acquisition of the United Kingdom subsidiary of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Union Bank UK, by Fidelity Bank Plc, has been completed. Fidelity Bank is a tier-2 financial institution in Nigeria, intending to move to the tier-1 category. Over a year ago, the lender announced that it was planning to take total control of Union Bank UK as part of its growth strategy. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), a body which regulates the country’s banking industry, authorised Fidelity Bank to go ahead with the deal. In a disclosure on Wednesday, the bank said it has

By Aduragbemi Omiyale The forthcoming trade expo organised by Fidelity Bank Plc has received the endorsement of the Mayor of Houston Texas, Mr Sylvester Turner. Mr Turner, in a short video, highlighted the several side attractions scheduled for FITCC Houston and encouraged businesses to take advantage of the expo to expand their businesses beyond borders. He described the event as “A catalyst to support bilateral trade between Nigeria and Houston; and an opportunity for the Houston community and the diaspora to explore emerging trends, forge new partnerships and unlock new possibilities.” The Nigerian lender will, on Tuesday, October 24 and

By Gbolahan Oluyemi Websites create an online presence for businesses and serve as a valuable tool to enhance e-commerce, customer engagement, branding, marketing, and lead generation. A website provides the bank customers with information on branch location, the composition of the bank’s management team, product features, forms, and terms and conditions of service. Aside from the branding and customer information, banks are legally required to publish certain information on their website.  This article considers some of the information banks are mandated by law to publish on their respective websites. A bank is required to publish its foreign exchange, lending, and

By Aduragbemi Omiyale Despite the challenging operating environment characterised by the Naira redesign policy and the foreign exchange (FX) unification policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Zenith Bank Plc showed why it is one of the strongest lenders in the country. Analysis of its financial statements for the first six months of 2023 showed that its gross earnings surged by 139 per cent to N967.3 billion from the N404.8 billion achieved in the same period of last year. It was observed from the results filed to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Monday that this triple-digit growth in

By Adedapo Adesanya Calm return to the foreign exchange market in Nigeria on Friday after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday said it was not going to devalue the Naira as earlier being feared in some quarters. This made the local currency to retreat to N380/$1 at the parallel market yesterday, after the value depreciated to N400/$1 at the black market due to panic demand for forex. This consequently made dealers to hoard the ones with them. However, the local currency depreciated by N2 against the Euro at the same market segment, selling on Friday at N416/€1 instead

By Jerome-Mario Chijioke Utomi There is no gain any more saying that the nation Nigeria is currently riddled with a high rate of insecurity which includes but is not limited to banditry, armed robbery, and kidnapping, is no longer the news. Such daily sad occurrences have become word-made flesh and now dwell among us. The newsy aspect of the conversation is that the weak, defective and unclear provisions of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution not only exacerbate the challenge and discourage development in the country but, most regrettably responsible for the myriad of problems confronting the nation in ways that see both

By Dipo Olowookere The Group Managing Director of UAC Nigeria Plc, Mr Fola Aiyesimoju, has expressed the willingness of the management to print a better gross margin going forward. Business Post reports that a gross margin, which is also known as the gross profit margin, is calculated by deducting the cost of goods sold from revenue and dividing the outcome by revenue. In the 2021 financial year, UAC Nigeria recorded a gross margin of 17.3 per cent compared with the 19.7 per cent achieved in the 2020 accounting year. Mr Aiyesimoju attributed this decline to the rising prices of raw

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigeria ranked the fifth most criminal market for trafficking in people, firearms, illicit cannabis and heroin trade, fauna crimes, synthetic drugs and non-renewable resource crimes. This is according to the 2021 Global Organised Crime Index, which shows the countries with the highest criminality levels. They are those experiencing conflict or fragility, adding that such affected nations were most affected by organised crime. The report said the Democratic Republic of Congo topped the list of the criminal markets with a score of 7.75, followed by Colombia 7.66; Myanmar 7.59; Mexico 7.56; Nigeria 7.15; Iran 7.10; Afghanistan 7.08; Iraq

By Adedapo Adesanya Transactions ended at the NASD Over the Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange on Thursday, September 26, 2019 with key market parameters remaining flat for the second consecutive day. Both the NASD Security Index (NSI) and market capitalization remained unchanged at 505.88 points and N505.88 billion respectively. However, the total volume of trades rose on Thursday after it dropped at the mid-week trading session. Today, this moved up by over 1,462 percent or 7,488,139 units to 8,000,200 units of shares against 512,061 units traded on Wednesday. But the total value of the transactions, which appreciated yesterday, went down today

By Modupe Gbadeyanka There are strong indications that the Nigerian economy will begin to crawl back into stability after spending last year in recession. A latest report by FSDH Research indicates that Nigeria, one of the biggest economies in Africa, is already showing signs of positive outlook and recovery. Recall that in 2016, Nigeria was severely hit by the drop in the crude oil price and crude oil production, which depleted its external reserves and foreign earnings. The economy officially entered into a recession in Q2 2016 following the release of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures showing two consecutive