Banking

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — The campaign to lead the World Trade Organization during the most turbulent period of its 25-year existence has officially begun. Playing out against the backdrop of a pandemic, a worldwide recession, the U.S.-China battle for trade supremacy, and the American presidential election, there couldn’t be more at stake. But Brazilian Director-General Roberto Azevedo’s decision to step down at the end of August, a year before his term ends, also…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Nigeria will continue to pursue exchange rate convergence around what is offered in the investors and exporters window, otherwise called nafex, the regulator said. “Exchange rate unification is moving toward the nafex,” central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele said on a call with investors on Tuesday. People buying dollars from the parallel market are engaged in ‘illegal business’ and ‘corrupt practices’ and the bank will not use the unofficial market as base…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Olam International Ltd., one of the world’s largest food traders, will increase its rice-processing capacity in Nigeria by half as it moves to benefit from the country’s increasing investment in the food crop. The company plans to build a second line at its factory in the northern Nigerian state of Nassarawa to provide an additional 120,000 tons of million capacity per annum by 2021, Ade Adefeko, vice president, corporate…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — The South African Reserve Bank will resist calls to finance the government’s growing budget deficit with aggressive quantitative easing because that could add even more strain on the National Treasury, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said. If the central bank were to buy 500 billion rand ($29 billion) of government bonds and then mop up the excess liquidity by issuing bonds at the current repurchase rate of 3.75%, it would be…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — South African banks face the steepest earnings slump in half a century — with some posting losses — as measures to curb the coronavirus drag the economy deeper into recession and lead to a surge in bad debts. “I have looked at each and every crisis in the last fifty-odd years and there is nothing this severe,” said Corné Conradie, an actuary and partner at auditing and consultancy firm…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — The average income of customers at South Africa’s First National Bank plummeted by about 20% during the nation’s lockdown as people took pay cuts or had less work to do. FirstRand Ltd.’s retail banking unit also experienced a “major drop off” in transactional activity and credit-card spending as businesses closed and people stayed home, FNB’s retail banking head Raj Makanjee said on a call with reporters on Tuesday. Credit growth suffered as South…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — South Africa’s central bank ruled out helping the government fund its runaway budget deficit by paying for its spending through loans, as the ruling party debates using the institution to fund infrastructure and development. “We do not think it is prudent to finance government directly,” Kuben Naidoo, a Reserve Bank deputy governor, said on a conference call hosted by money manager Ninety One. “It would increase inflation risks. It…