Banking

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ghana faces a looming fuel shortage as the central bank rations dollars after oil prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The monthly fuel import bill for the West African nation jumped to $450 million in May, from $250 million in January, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The central bank is only offering about $100 million a month at its foreign exchange auctions, and licensed…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Many of Africa’s biggest banks and insurers have joined forces to tackle the continent’s biodiversity crisis while at the same time working out how to cash in on opportunities arising from it. The African Natural Capital Alliance, launched Wednesday, is the latest in a flurry of finance sector interest in the risks and opportunities associated with the threats to biodiversity globally and its establishment is in a continent overwhelmingly dependent on…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya’s central bank unexpectedly raised its key interest rate for the first time in almost seven years to anchor inflation expectations as concerns about commodity prices build.  The monetary policy committee increased the rate by 50 basis points to 7.5%, Governor Patrick Njoroge said in an emailed statement Monday. That’s the first increase since July 2015. None of the five economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted the move. The…

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa is trying to emulate Russian President Vladimir Putin in his attempt to revive Africa’s worst performing currency. Mnangagwa’s administration may announce plans as early as this week for government departments in Zimbabwe — under U.S. sanctions for economic mismanagement and human rights violations for the past two decades — to show “high preference” for the Zimbabwe dollar in the payment of services, according to Persistence…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. offered its first ever lending facility backed by Bitcoin, in a significant step for a major U.S. bank that accelerates Wall Street’s embrace of cryptocurrencies.  The secured lending facility lent cash collateralized by Bitcoin owned by the borrower, a spokeswoman for the bank said. The deal was interesting to Goldman because of its structure and 24-hour risk management, she said in an email. Wall…

GABORONE (Capital Markets in Africa) –  Botswana increased its revamped interest rate to counter inflationary pressures stemming from Russia’s war with Ukraine. The central bank’s policy committee raised the yield on the main monetary operations instrument by 51 basis points to 1.65%, Governor Moses Pelaelo told reporters in the capital, Gaborone, on Thursday.The bank in February said it would shift to using the yield on the seven-day Bank of Botswana certificate, known as the monetary policy rate,…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Several central banks and the Bank for International Settlements have developed prototypes for a common digital currencies platform that has the potential to make cross-border payments more efficient. The two prototypes demonstrate the technical viability of such a platform, the BIS said in a statement Tuesday with the Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Negara Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the South African Reserve Bank. Codenamed “Project Dunbar,”…