Features

MOGADISHU (Capital Markets in Africa) – Somalia has set up a national payments system as part of plans to develop the financial industry in one of the world’s most fragile states, following decades of political and economic instability. The 13 lenders in the Horn of Africa nation can now “become inter-operable, connected to the clearing and settlement system of the central bank and able to transact with each other,” Central Bank of Somalia Governor Abdirahman…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Young investment bankers on big salaries who complain about being overworked have come under fire from one of the City of London’s veteran financiers. Xavier Rolet, the former boss of the London Stock Exchange who was previously a leading banker, has told graduates who do not enjoy their jobs “by any means do something else”. He suggested that financial firms troubled by mutinous staff “should try hiring poor, hungry…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – The U.S. Senate is heading toward passage this week of a $550 billion infrastructure bill that would provide the biggest infusion of federal spending on public works in decades and mark a major milestone for President Joe Biden’s economic agenda. The Democratic and Republican senators who negotiated the plan spent the weekend haggling over last-minute details and combing through the 2,702-page bill text before submitting it to the…

JOHANNESBUGR (Capital Markets in Africa) – The trip from Pretoria to Mabopane starts on a six-lane highway lined with malls and office parks, passes verdant gated communities featuring pools and gardens, and ends in the dusty township north of South Africa’s capital where the trees, shops, and sumptuous homes make way for stark, single-story cinder-block structures in dirt yards. Inside one of them—the Katekani Community Development Project, a collection of brick buildings behind a barbed-wire…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – An urgent global effort to rebalance the inequity between rich, vaccinated nations and poor nations sliding further into pandemic misery is colliding with an immovable calendar conflict: the European summer holiday. Next week World Trade Organization delegates are planning to depart Geneva for their August break and, in doing so, pause their fractious debate over a proposal to waive intellectual-property protections for Covid-19 shots until the second week of…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Early in the pandemic last year, London property developer Arnaud Touret bought a batch of 5,000 rapid Covid tests from South Korea. He set up a laboratory to analyze the results, hired a chief medical officer and applied for U.K. accreditation for his new venture. His company, Covid Home Test U.K. Ltd., is now among more than 400 businesses listed on the government’s website offering PCR tests for travelers on their…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – After South Africa’s week from hell, the trial of Jacob Zuma has been postponed until August 10, and it will be months, perhaps even years, before a judicial panel decides whether or not the former president is guilty of corruption. His successor faces far swifter judgment in the court of public opinion. President Cyril Ramaphosa is scrambling to undo the damage, physical and political, wrought by the widespread rioting in…