The Editorial Team |

Kenya’s Biggest Bank Sees Rate Caps Staying Until at Least 2019

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya’s biggest bank reckons limits on interest-rate charges that have weighed on profit will be around for at least another year. “There are a lot of conversations happening and I have not seen anything today that says that we are ready to move,” KCB Group Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Joshua Oigara said in an interview in the capital, Nairobi, last week. Even the bank’s best-case scenario is that a review process of the…

Net1 Understated South Africa Profit to Court, Group Says

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa)- Net1 UEPS Technologies Inc., a unit of which distributes welfare payments in South Africa, understated its profit from the government contract in a submission to the country’s Constitutional Court that was audited by KPMG LLP, a report released by a development-economics research agency said. The company rejected the allegation and demanded the report be retracted. The court demanded the submission from Net1’s Cash Paymaster Services this year because the company continued to distribute more…

Blockchain Gets a Wall Street Win: `We Know the Thing Works Now’

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The prospect of blockchain technology remaking financial services just moved a step closer to reality after banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. completed a successful six-month test in the $2.8 trillion equity swaps market. The program, managed by blockchain startup Axoni, kept track of the swaps contracts after they were executed, recording things like amendments or termination of the deals, stock splits and dividends, and achieved…

Bitcoin’s White-Knuckle Ride Continues as It Hurtles Past $8,000

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin’s relentless and volatile rally shows no sign of abating, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency defying growing bubble fears to hit yet another milestone. Bitcoin rose as much as 6.7 percent to a record $8,224 as of 9:27 a.m. in New York. It’s been a tumultuous year for the virtual currency, with three separate slumps of more than 25 percent all giving way to subsequent rallies. “The inflation in…

Mediclinic Drops Spire Takeover After Second Bid Is Rejected

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Mediclinic International Plc dropped plans to buy the rest of Spire Healthcare Group Plc after its own investors and the U.K. private hospital operator spurned a deal that would have valued the target company at about 1.27 billion pounds ($1.68 billion). The South African hospital operator said the two sides were unable to reach an agreement following a month of talks after its Oct. 18 proposal was rejected as too low. Mediclinic had made another bid…

Nigerian Economic Growth Quickens as Oil Output Increases

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s economic growth accelerated in the third quarter as oil output rose to the highest since the start of last year. The gross domestic product of Africa’s largest crude producer expanded 1.4 percent in the three months through September from a year earlier, compared with a revised 0.7 percent in the second quarter, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said Monday in an emailed report. The median of 13 economists’ estimates…

HSBC Closes Accounts Linked to South Africa’s Guptas Amid Review

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – HSBC Holdings Plc is shuttering accounts associated with the powerful Gupta family as it assesses its exposure to the scandal gripping South Africa. The bank is conducting a wide-ranging review of any possible involvement in suspicious transactions, with the assistance of external investigators, people with knowledge of the matter said. HSBC first closed accounts held by companies linked to the Gupta family in 2014 after internal compliance procedures picked up…

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