Banking | - Part 72

Signs Say Yes for South African Bond Sales But Issuers Say No

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – With emerging-market credit spreads near their best levels in more than a decade, 2018 should’ve been the year to borrow. Yet bond sales by South African banks, insurers and property companies are headed for a five-year low. Not everyone is missing the boat. Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd., the country’s fastest-growing major lender, last week sold 500 million rand ($40 million) of three-year floating-rate notes at 153 basis points above the quarterly three-month Johannesburg…

Kenya’s Top Buyer of Banks Is Now Looking Ahead to Profits

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NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – SBM Holdings Ltd., the Mauritius lender that bought two Kenyan banks within months of each other, expects the combined operations to make a profit within a year. The second-biggest lender in the Indian Ocean island-nation is expanding in East Africa’s largest economy to use it as a hub for the rest of the region as part of a broader strategy funded by debt to add assets in its home…

Ghana Cuts Interest Rate to 4-Year Low as Inflation Slows

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ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ghana cut its benchmark interest rate to the lowest in more than four years as the inflation rate fell within the regulator’s target band for the first time since 2013. The Bank of Ghana reduced the rate by 100 basis points to 17 percent, Governor Ernest Addison told reporters Monday in the capital, Accra. Lower borrowing costs may boost expansion in one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies. Inflation at 9.6 percent in April was…

Nigeria Holds Key Rate at Record-High 14% on Inflation Risks

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s central bank held its main lending rate at a record-high 14 percent as it seeks to bring inflation down to within its target band. Of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee who attended this week’s meeting, eight voted to leave the benchmark rate, Governor Godwin Emefiele told reporters in the capital, Abuja, on Tuesday. That decision matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Lawmakers only approved 2018 spending…

Zambia Central-Bank Head Kalyalya Faces Another Tough Test

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LUSAKA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bank of Zambia Governor Denny Kalyalya can’t seem to catch a break. When he took leadership of the central bank in Africa’s second-biggest copper producer three years ago, the economy was on the brink of a crisis, with inflation rapidly accelerating to reach 22.9 percent. Now that he’s had his contract extended for five years, a new set of problems are emerging. The kwacha has fallen almost 7 percent against the…

Egypt Holds Rates as Oil Price Rise Stokes Inflation Worries

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CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Egypt’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged on Thursday, as the government prepares for a new round of fuel subsidy cuts against a backdrop of rising global oil prices. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, headed by Governor Tarek Amer, held the overnight deposit rate at 16.75 percent — in line with predictions by five out of eight economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The overnight lending rate was kept at…

Tunisia’s Central Bank Holds Its Key Rate Amid High Inflation

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TUNIS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Tunisia’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, as high inflation complicates efforts to overhaul an economy that’s seen little in the way of foreign investment since its 2011 uprising. The decision to hold the rate at 5.75 percent came after Tunisia posted a stronger than expected 2.5 percent rise in economic growth in the first quarter of 2018, compared to 1.9 percent a year earlier. The annual inflation rate…

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