The Editorial Team |

Why `Contracts for Difference’ Are Under Scrutiny

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Contracts for difference, or CFDs, have hastened the demise of an Irish bank, triggered Ponzi schemes in Chile and featured in a $100 million U.S. insider-trading racket. More recently, they’ve spooked European regulators because of the risks they pose to retail investors. There are proposals to cap potential investor losses and to ban advertising of CFDs, which are pitched to investors via television commercials and sponsorships of soccer clubs from Real Madrid to…

UK banks to check 70m bank accounts in search for illegal immigrants

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LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Banks and building societies are to carry out immigration checks on 70m current accounts from January in the biggest extension of Theresa May’s plans to create a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants in Britain, the Guardian has learned. The Home Office expects to identify 6,000 visa overstayers, failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders facing deportation in the first year of the checks, which are to be carried out quarterly….

Unintended Result of Nigerian Dollar Hunt Is Naira Shortage

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – First Nigerian businesses were hit by a dollar shortage. Now there aren’t enough naira. A central bank requirement that companies back forward dollar purchases with naira is drying up supplies, helping to underpin a 2.1 percent gain since the local currency fell to a record low against the greenback on Aug. 9. At the same time, an increase in government borrowing is spurring banks to invest in the safety of sovereign debt rather…

Aliko Dangote Ups Bidding War for PPC With Cash, Share Offer

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Dangote Cement Plc, the Nigerian company controlled by Africa’s richest person, has written to PPC Ltd. offering South Africa’s biggest cement maker cash and shares as part of a takeover deal that is fuelling a bidding war. “We are waiting for them to get back to us, hopefully early next week,” Aliko Dangote said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in New York. “They can be part and parcel…

South Africa Inflation Stays Firmly Within Target Band in August

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s inflation rate stayed firmly within the central bank’s target band in August, strengthening the case for more policy easing on Thursday. Inflation quickened to 4.8 percent from 4.6 percent in July, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said Wednesday in a report on its website. The median estimate of 22 economists in a Bloomberg survey was for 4.9 percent. Prices rose 0.1 percent in the month. The higher inflation is unlikely to…

Kenya’s Top Court Slams Electoral Body Over Botched Election

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NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya’s top court delivered a stinging rebuke of the nation’s electoral commission, identifying a litany of failures in its handling of last month’s botched presidential elections and describing its explanations for the failure of its systems as unacceptable. The Supreme Court ruled the Aug. 8 election unlawful on Sept. 1, and ordered a rerun. A five-judge bench on Wednesday delivered the court’s detailed judgment, which upheld the main opposition’s complaints that President Uhuru…

Nigeria Central Bank’s Acting as Piggy Bank, MPC Member Says

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) Nigeria’s central bank is acting like a “piggy bank” with its funding of the government, according to a member of the Monetary Policy Committee who said he struggles to understand the regulator’s economic rationale. Monetary data showed a “sharp rise” in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s financing of the government deficit this year, Doyin Salami said after the MPC’s July 24-25 meeting, according to a central bank statement published Tuesday. The regulator’s…

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