Economy
PayU Commences Operations in Kenya
Economic growth in the East Africa region is estimated to remain at a steady 5.9 percent in 2019, a significantly higher percentage than North Africa at 4.9 percent and Southern Africa at 1.2 percent, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The countries with the highest economic growth include Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania, with the service sector the primary driver of growth for the latter two.
For this reason, PayU has been a licensed operator in Kenya since February 2019 and launched robust payment services for the region. Kenya, as the power hub for East Africa is superbly positioned for expansion into the rest of Africa.
“Kenya is a powerful and growing market, ideally suited for investment and expansion for high velocity merchants.” says Corrie Bakker, Head of Strategy & Business Development, PayU Africa. “With our global, long-standing reputation, and local presence in the Kenyan market, we provide organisations with a doorway into East Africa that’s built on the foundations of long-standing relationships and local expertise.”
PayU’s successful Kenyan operation has been approved by the Central Bank of Kenya, cementing its standing and local approval. The launch of PayU in Kenya provides organisations with on-the-ground local liaisons, strong relationships, improved stability and reduced downtime, and localised customer support. With PayU Kenya, users are able to transact in volume at the approval rates certified by PayU, and are assured of robust, ongoing security.
“Working with us in Kenya not only opens the door to Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda – countries that have shown real GDP growth – but provides our partners with the first line of local defence with people on the ground,” says Bakker. “We provide a new set of credentials and a tokenised anti-fraud offering with a re-occurring option that assures merchants of strong security and peace of mind.”
In addition to strong economic growth prospects and a growing middle class, Kenya’s payment market is dominated by mobile transactions. More than 80% of payments take place over mobile wallets with M-PESA remaining the dominant provider of choice, closely followed by card payments, then EFT. PayU provides a single, integrated transaction point that embeds these payment preferences into a central ecosystem, making it simple and accessible for merchant and customer alike. To complement the localised offering in Kenya, PayU has formulated a key partnership with Cellulant to ensure hyper-localization and payment method expansion.
The Cellulant corporation develops and provides a one-stop mobile payments platform for connecting businesses and governments in Africa. It offers consumer payments, digital and neighbourhood agency banking and remittance solutions. Some of the services offered by Cellulant include Mula, Agrikore, and Tingg.
“We have one integrated transaction point that recognises what customers want,” adds Bakker. “Ensuring that customers can access their funds using known, locally respected payment solutions, mitigates challenges around customer trust and accessibility. This is further enhanced by our global presence, our reputation as a reliable, stable and secure payment platform, and our ongoing acquisitions into products and services that enhance our offering.”
PayU recently cemented the $70 million acquisition of Wibmo, a U.S.-based start-up with operations in India that offers payment processing services across risk, fraud, authentication, mobile payments and more. Wibmo adds additional strategic services and capabilities to the PayU stable alongside Citrus (acquired for $US 130 million 2016), PaySense and Zest Money – the latter two forming part of PayU’s investment strategy. The company has also invested into Creditas, LazyPay, Remitly and acquired Zooz – an Israeli payment technology provider.
“Each of these acquisitions and investments allows us to future-proof PayU and the services it can offer to merchant and customer alike,” concludes Bakker. “Already, we have surpassed the $US500 million mark for our total fintech investment, making us one of the top five leading global fintech investors in the world.”
This commitment to strategic fintech investment and innovation underpins PayU’s move into Kenya and the East African region. It cements PayU’s focus on driving growth and development in emerging markets, assures clients of local support and expertise within the region, and provides a stepping stone into the thriving growth markets that are rising in East Africa.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has once again trimmed its 2024 and 2025 oil demand growth forecasts.
The bloc made this in its latest monthly oil market report for December 2024.
The 2024 world oil demand growth forecast is now put at 1.61 million barrels per day from the previous 1.82 million barrels per day.
For 2025, OPEC says the world oil demand growth forecast is now at 1.45 million barrels per day, which is 900,000 barrels per day lower than the 1.54 million barrels per day earlier quoted.
On the changes, the group said that the downgrade for this year owes to more bearish data received in the third quarter of 2024 while the projections for next year relate to the potential impact that will arise from US tariffs.
The oil cartel had kept the 2024 outlook unchanged until August, a view it had first taken in July 2023.
OPEC and its wider group of allies known as OPEC+ earlier this month delayed its plan to start raising output until April 2025 against a backdrop of falling prices.
Eight OPEC+ member countries – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman – decided to extend additional crude oil production cuts adopted in April 2023 and November 2023, due to weak demand and booming production outside the group.
In April 2023, these OPEC+ countries decided to reduce their oil production by over 1.65 million barrels per day as of May 2023 until the end of 2023. These production cuts were later extended to the end of 2024 and will now be extended until the end of December 2026.
In addition, in November 2023, these producers had agreed to voluntary output cuts totalling about 2.2 million barrels per day for the first quarter of 2024, in order to support prices and stabilise the market.
These additional production cuts were extended to the end of 2024 and will now be extended to the end of March 2025; they will then be gradually phased out on a monthly basis until the end of September 2026.
Members have made a series of deep output cuts since late 2022.
They are currently cutting output by a total of 5.86 million barrels per day, or about 5.7 per cent of global demand. Russia also announced plans to reduce its production by an extra 471,000 barrels per day in June 2024.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A minority equity stake in Chappal Energies Mauritius Limited has been acquired by a Nigerian energy firm, Aradel Holdings Plc.
This deal came a few days after Chappal Energies purchased a 53.85 per cent equity stake in Equinor Nigeria Energy Company Limited (ENEC).
Chappal Energies went into the deal with Equinor to take part in the oil and gas lease OML 128, including the unitised 20.21 per cent stake in the Agbami oil field, operated by Chevron.
Since production started in 2008, the Agbami field has produced more than one billion barrels of oil, creating value for Nigerian society and various stakeholders.
As part of the deal, Chappal will assume the operatorship of OML 129, which includes several significant prospects and undeveloped discoveries (Nnwa, Bilah and Sehki).
The Nnwa discovery is part of the giant Nnwa-Doro field, a major gas resource with significant potential to deliver value for Nigeria.
In a separate transaction, on July 17, 2024, Chappal and Total Energies sealed an SPA for the acquisition by Chappal of 10 per cent of the SPDC JV.
The relevant parties to this transaction are working towards closing out this transaction and Ministerial Approval and NNPC consent to accede to the Joint Operating Agreement have been obtained.
“This acquisition is in line with diversifying our asset base, deepening our gas competencies and gaining access to offshore basins using low-risk approaches.
“We recognise the strategic role of gas in Nigeria’s energy future and are happy to expand our equity holding in this critical resource.
“We are committed to the cause of developing the significant value inherent in the assets, which will be extremely beneficial to the country.
“Aradel hopes to bring its proven execution competencies to bear in supporting Chappal’s development of these opportunities,” the chief executive of Aradel Holdings, Mr Adegbite Falade, stated.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Afriland Properties Plc helped the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange record a 0.04 per cent gain on Tuesday, December 10 as the share price of the property investment rose by 34 Kobo to N16.94 per unit from the preceding day’s N16.60 per unit.
As a result of this, the market capitalisation of the bourse went up by N380 million to remain relatively unchanged at N1.056 trillion like the previous trading day.
But the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) closed higher at 3,014.36 points after it recorded an addition of 1.09 points to Monday’s closing value of 3,013.27 points.
The NASD OTC securities exchange recorded a price loser and it was Geo-Fluids Plc, which went down by 2 Kobo to close at N3.93 per share, in contrast to the preceding day’s N3.95 per share.
During the trading session, the volume of securities bought and sold by investors increased by 95.8 per cent to 2.4 million units from the 1.2 million securities traded in the preceding session.
However, the value of shares traded yesterday slumped by 3.7 per cent to N4.9 million from the N5.07 million recorded a day earlier, as the number of deals surged by 27.3 per cent to 14 deals from 11 deals.
Geo-Fluids Plc remained the most active stock by volume (year-to-date) with 1.7 billion units sold for N3.9 billion, trailed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units worth N5.3 million.
Also, Aradel Holdings Plc remained the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with 108.7 million units worth N89.2 billion, followed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units sold for N5.3 billion.
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