Banking

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Fidelity Bank Plc of Nigeria plans to boost investment in technology as a way of cutting costs and increasing profit over the next three to four years. The Lagos-based lender already hiked spending on digitization by more than 40 percent this year, and plans to increase its outlay further still, Chief Operating Officer Gbolahan Joshua said in an interview in the West African nation’s commercial hub. Technology will allow the bank to…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – In emerging markets, the shallow reach of traditional money systems means there’s less resistance to new financial technology. At the Sifa Children’s Center, shacks made of corrugated metal serve as classrooms for some 300 pupils, circling an expanse of dusty, hard-packed earth that’s both playground and meeting space. Beyond the school stretches Gatina, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi. Headmaster Francis Wanjala is standing in…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The collapse of Skye Bank Plc is darkening the outlook for Nigeria’s other small lenders struggling to recover from the economy’s contraction two years ago, and threatening to derail the regulator’s ambitions of expanding the industry. The Central Bank of Nigeria last week revoked the lender’s license for failing to meet capital and liquidity thresholds since the authorities first intervened to rescue the business in 2016. The Lagos-based company’s battle to…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s central bank held its policy rate at a record high as it sees inflationary pressures increasing. he Monetary Policy Committee kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 14 percent, Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele told reporters on Tuesday in the capital, Abuja. Seven panel members voted to keep policy unchanged and three favored a 25 basis-point increase, he said. The MPC has held rates at the record high since 2016…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya’s central bank held its benchmark rate at a three-year low as inflation is expected to remain in its target range. The Monetary Policy Committee, which was fully constituted with nine members for the first time in five years, kept the rate at 9 percent, central bank Governor Patrick Njoroge said in a statement emailed Tuesday from the capital, Nairobi. That was in line with all 11 projections in a Bloomberg survey. “Overall…