NCC May Sanction MTN Again Over SIM Cards Issues

By Adedapo Adesanya The newly appointed Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Aminu Maida, has emphasized a need to focus on efforts that align with the Strategic Blueprint of the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Mr Bosun Tijani, and the digital economy drive of President Bola Tinubu. Mr Maida, who resumed duty on Tuesday, met with the Senior Management Staff of the commission where he highlighted his focus and emphasized all targets under his administration. Mr Maida started his day by taking a tour of the agency’s headquarters and held a productive meeting with

By Adedapo Adesanya Leading global provider of technological solutions YNV Group, through its cybersecurity brand, Cytek, has advocated that stakeholders in the financial services sector prioritise cybersecurity and highlighted key strategies for resilience at a recently hosted webinar for the industry. The session which was held on November 22, was themed Ensuring Cybersecurity Resilience in Financial Services Companies in Nigeria, and served as a pivotal platform for fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange in the sector. Led by cybersecurity experts in the industry, the webinar analysed some of the pressing challenges and emerging threats faced by financial services companies in Nigeria while

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Salesforce and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have expanded their strategic partnership, deepening product integrations across data and artificial intelligence (AI). The new and enhanced integrations will include streamlining purchasing options for customers via the AWS marketplace, enhancing customer experiences through unified data management, empowering developers with new AWS compute and development services, securely bringing AWS data and AI services to Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform, and ensuring seamless customer service with service cloud and Amazon connect. It was gathered these features will enable customers to seamlessly and securely manage their data across Salesforce and AWS, and safely and

By Adedapo Adesanya Oil prices plummeted by more than 3 per cent on Friday as global recession fears and weak oil demand, with the Brent crude futures dropping $2.94 or 3.1 per cent to settle at $91.63 a barrel, and the United States West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures falling by $3.50 or 3.9 per cent to $85.61 a barrel. US core inflation recorded its biggest annual increase in 40 years, reinforcing views that interest rates would stay higher for longer with the risk of a global recession. The next US interest rate decision is due between November 1 and

By Dipo Olowookere Nigerian stocks appreciated by 1.67 per cent on Thursday, which was the first trading session after the two-day public holiday to celebrate Sallah. Investors returned to the market with renewed vigour and the declaration of an interim dividend of N4 by Total Nigeria was the trigger dividend hunters needed to spur bargain hunting. At the close of transactions, the energy stock led the gainers’ chart of 22 members after its equity price rose by 10.00 per cent to settle at N184.80. Cutix appreciated by 9.77 per cent to finish at N4.38, Oando gained 9.73 per cent to

By Dipo Olowookere For the first time in 37 months, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria contracted last month. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which announced the manufacturing PMI in its monthly report, stated that in the month of May 2020, the manufacturing PMI stood at 42.4 index points. For the past 36 consecutive months, the index has expanded until last month and according to the apex bank, of the 14 surveyed subsectors, only the electrical equipment sector reported growth (above 50 percent threshold) in the review month. The CBN said the remaining 13

By Emmanuel Otori Start-ups require capital to establish a business. Capital is the amount of initial investment plus any interest accrued early. The initial investment of a company initiative is the sum required to get things started. Both internal and external sources of funding are used by start-up founders. Many times, a lot of work goes into starting a business, but can it survive the possibility of a brief lifespan? Although some start-ups frequently fail in operation when they run a deficit, operate in the wrong market for their offering, lack industry knowledge, and conduct sufficient research, a business can

By Dipo Olowookere The local bourse weakened by 0.09 per cent on Wednesday due to profit-taking by investors after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) increased the key interest rate by 100 basis points to 17.5 per cent at the end of the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of 2023. It was observed that blue-chip stocks like GTCO, Nigerian Breweries and others were battered during the session, contributing to the downfall of the market. From an analysis of the market data, the consumer goods sector went down by 1.21 per cent, the insurance counter dropped 0.13 per cent, the

By Dipo Olowookere Nigeria’s main stock market was down by 0.68 per cent on Friday, thanks to the profit-taking in shares of MTN Nigeria, UPDC and 13 others. The equity price of UPDC went down by 9.47 per cent to N1.53, Livestock Feeds dropped 8.68 per cent to N2.00, Prestige Assurance fell by 8.51 per cent to 43 kobo, GlaxoSmithKline declined by 6.25 per cent to N6.00, while NPF Microfinance Bank decreased by 5.26 per cent to N1.80. These stocks and others suppressed the gains posted by 16 equities during the trading session led by Veritas Kapital, which grew by

By Dipo Olowookere The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that economic activity in Côte d’Ivoire will remain strong this year. The global lender made this prediction after its team held talks with authorities of the West African nation governed by President Alassane Ouattara. An IMF team led Mr Dhaneshwar Ghura had visited Abidjan from March 22 to April 5, 2018, to hold discussions on the 2018 Article IV Consultation and the third review of the three-year economic and financial program supported by the IMF through arrangements under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). After

By Adedapo Adesanya Tether Operations Limited (Tether), the technology company supporting the blockchain-enabled platform that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalization (USD₮), and the Swiss City of Lugano have announced the second inaugural Plan ₿ Summer School programme to drive Bitcoin education. The Plan ₿ Summer School was founded to make blockchain education accessible and to shape a new generation of business owners, students, researchers, and more. It is co-organized with Franklin University Switzerland (FUS), Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI), and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). Last year, Tether contributed its expertise and