Category: Money

CRC Credit Bureau Limited has appointed Mrs. Jelilat Kareem as its Group Chief Operating Officer (GCOO) of the company.

This appointment took effect from January 1, 2022.

Mrs. Kareem will oversee the Finance, Enterprise Wide Services, Operations, and Technology of the Group, driving global best practices.

Prior to this appointment, she was the Head of Finance and Corporate Services of the organisation.

Mrs Kareem has over 24 years‘ experience in start-up management, accounting and finance, treasury management, credit and risk management, strategy, human resources management, governance and corporate services, including systems/policy formulation and analysis.

The Group Managing Director/CEO of CRC Credit Bureau Limited, Dr. ‘Tunde Popoola, said: “From the business perspective, Jelilat brings to her new role, both a broad and practical experience with a variety of public and private companies.  She has in-depth expertise in financial regulations and processes. She is highly respected in her field, and we are excited to continue working with her in this capacity to meet our corporate strategic goals.”

Fidelity Bank Plc has presented N10 million prizes to winners of the February draw of the Get Alerts in Millions Season 5 promo (GAIM 5).

The presentation held at the Fidelity Bank branch in Suru Alaba, Lagos and in several branches across the country.

Winners in the last month’s draw are: Aliu Usman Sunday, Abdullahi Abu Saibu Nwankwo Okoro David, Hadiza Sindama Nuhu, Douglas Monday, Goodness Chiamaka Basil, Idemudia Gracious Eghosa, Ndiana Monday James, Kolade Jacob Elujoba and Obinna Williams Samuel.

The Promo Chairperson and Executive Director, Lagos and Southwest, Fidelity Bank Plc, Ken Opara, said:, “At the heart of our operations is an overriding desire to make life easier for our customers while empowering them to live fuller and richer lives.

“As a bank, we take pride in transforming and improving the lives of our customers. Over time, we have seen Nigerians climb the socio-economic ladder monthly simply because they maintain a minimum of N2,000 in their Fidelity Bank accounts.”

“Today, we would be presenting the sum of N1million to Aliu Usman Sunday and Abdullahi Abu Saibu who emerged winners in the third GAIM 5 monthly draw held last week. Apart from Sunday and Saibu, eight other customers of Fidelity Bank would receive their cash prizes of N1 million at similar events at their branches across the country today. This is in continuation of promise to give out a total of N125 million to customers in the GAIM 5 promo between November 2021 and July 2022.”

A new microwork pilot project in Kenya by Celo Foundation and Mercy Corps Ventures has helped hundreds of Kenyan youth access digital jobs with greater earnings than ever before. The pilot demonstrates the potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies to drive financial inclusion by creating new digital employment opportunities, reducing the cost of cross-border micropayments, and incentivising saving among low-income youths.

Digital microwork, a global industry with an estimated size close to $1 billion, is a form of digital labor that breaks up complex technical projects into thousands of fractional tasks that can be completed on a mobile phone within minutes.

Microwork has the potential to create jobs for gig workers of any skill level and boost employment for Africa’s booming youth population. Research  shows that in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania, females are more likely to be microworkers than males. The flexibility offered by microwork makes it more inclusive of women because it can be completed at home and during flexible hours, making it highly compatible with the multiple demands on women’s time. Twenty-year-old Sarah Turuma, a pilot participant who lives in a low-income Nairobi settlement, reported that “This program has changed my life and my overall view of online jobs…the pilot jobs served as good training for work on the open platform. The technologies are fast, easy to use, and efficient. The program came at a crucial time when many had lost their livelihood due to the Covid-19 pandemic and as such, it has been beneficial to all participants.”

However, one of the key challenges surrounding microwork is paying workers. Historically, cross-border payments have been costly, slow, and bureaucratic. High transaction fees, especially for lower payouts, mean that microworkers often forfeit a significant portion of earnings (with a global weighted average cost of 4.71 per cent but in some cases up to 30 per cent of gross earnings). Workers need to wait for a month to accumulate their earnings and justify the cost of the payment rail, which makes digital microwork unappealing, despite its potential to provide income.

“Cryptocurrency removes this costly barrier and has the potential to create new ways for young people to earn, spend, save and send money,” explains Scott Onder, Senior Managing Director, Mercy Corps Ventures. “We trained 200 Kenyan youth to access digital microwork from global platforms using a mobile app and integrated Valora digital wallet, which is built on Celo. Our pilot-tested how a stablecoin could reduce the costs and challenges of sending and receiving cross-border micropayments over a three-month period.”

Participants were paid within a few seconds in Celo dollars (cUSD), a Celo-native stablecoin that tracks the value of the US dollar, with fees at approximately $0.01. Participants could then cash out anytime to Kenya’s ubiquitous mobile money platform, M-Pesa. While the amount paid for a single task is small, young people could earn roughly $7.00 a day – significant when the Kenyan urban earning average for low-income groups is $4.35 per day. The pilot proved that using cryptocurrency dramatically reduced the average transaction cost for microwork payments – dropping from 28.8 per cent for a $5 transaction to 2.02 per cent, regardless of transaction value. This translates to a 93 per cent reduction in transaction fees, drastically boosting participants’ daily take-home earnings.

“Our goal at Celo is to support an inclusive financial system that contributes to achieving prosperity for all,” says Will Le, Partner, Innovation, Celo. “By reducing financial frictions, we introduced a new model for tapping talent across borders, which was not previously possible with traditional financial infrastructure. Cryptocurrency, and specifically stablecoins, could hugely reduce the cost of remittances and foster cross-border commerce. In 2020, remittances made up 3.13 per cent of Kenya’s total GDP, totaling a value of over three billion dollars. With global weighted average remittance costs at 4.71 per cent, Kenyans receiving remittances are potentially losing out on over $80 million per year.”

Given that the average cost of remittances to the value of USD 200 is significantly higher than the global average (8.72 percent in sub-Saharan Africa versus 6.30 globally), the savings are potentially even greater. If all those transactions only cost the 2.02 per cent enabled during the pilot, the total potential impact to the Kenyan economy could be over $200 million, or 0.22 per cent over Kenya’s overall GDP.

The Celo / Mercy Corps Ventures pilot project shows that talented, skilled young people in Kenya and beyond, regardless of their location, can generate income and participate in the global economy.

The Group Managing Director/CEO, Gtext Global Group, Dr. Stephen Akintayo, has been accepted into the Forbes Business Council.

Akintayo was selected based on his experience and achievements.

“We are honoured to welcome Akintayo into the community,” said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Business Council.

He added: “Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world.”

As a member of the Council, Akintayo has access to opportunities to help him reach peak professional influence.

He will work with an editorial team to share his insights in business articles on Forbes.com and to contribute to published question and answer panels alongside others.

Akintayo  said: “l am so excited about this new feat and I’m hoping to meet thought leaders in my industry and other industries, learn from their expertise and experience, and collaborate in every way possible to influence my audience. ”

Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo has said the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) National Action Plan (NAP) is one of the Federal Government’s efforts towards improving Nigeria’s business environment.

Osinbajo spoke at the inauguration of a diapers manufacturing plant in Lagos.

According to the Vice President, some core economic objectives of the government include facilitating private sector collaboration, and adding value through diversification and growth of the country’s non-oil sectors so as to boost rapid economic growth, with jobs and prosperity.

The seventh 60-day National Action Plan (NAP 7.0) on Ease of Doing Business is ongoing.

Osinbajo stated that the NAP 7.0, which started on February 7, and will last till April 7, 2022, “aims to deepen the reforms delivered over the past five years, with a focus on agro-exports, process automation, improvement in regulatory practices, judicial reforms and Executive Order 01/ReportGov.NG compliance.”

He further noted that the Buhari administration has “highlighted key action items in all of the focus areas to ensure that they do not unravel and to ensure we drive sustainability’’.

“Some of the targets include removal of regulatory constraints around agro-exports, driving electronic filing of taxes and publication of insolvency regulations pursuant to the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020,” he added.

PEBEC Secretary and Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Jumoke Oduwole, highlighted the achievement of the PEBEC to promote the ease of doing business in Nigeria, noting: “Institutional reforms in the public sector were major factors in jump-starting and sustaining economic growth and development.”

Oduwole, stated: “While the reform journey has yielded marked improvement in particular areas, particularly in the initial years of the PEBEC’s intervention, it has not been an easy one. As we are all aware, several bureaucratic and regulatory challenges remain at all arms and levels of government, which continue to affect the speed, cost and transparency of doing business in Nigeria.”

The National Action Plans (NAPs) – 60-day accelerators, which is part of the Federal Government’s efforts towards improving the business climate, is designed to coordinate the effective delivery of priority reforms of select Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) yearly.

Furthermore, NAP 7.0 seeks to intensify efforts at improving travel experience at our airports and to strengthen the automation of the business incorporation process of the Corporate Affairs Commission. Other reforms include the establishment of Small Claims Court across more States of the Federation, as well as to drive adoption of electronic filing of taxes by tax payers.

Guaranty Trust Holding Company, Access Bank, Plc, Loatsad, Promomedia and Silvercase and community of partners have identified with the ongoing Fifth Annual Agile Nigeria Conference in Lagos.

In her welcome address, founder/Chief Executive Officer, The Agile Advisor Africa/Chairman, Agile Practitioners Association of Nigeria, Mrs. Abiodun Osoba, lauded the institutions for sponsoring the event.

She said: “Our theme for this year is Continuous Improvement Strategies, Business & Technology  to deliberate on an important new concepts in agile that have proven to be successful in many parts of the world.”

She said the event was an opportunity to learn from and connect with people who are passionate about uncovering better ways of working and doing.

“Whether you are well into your agile journey or have only just embarked, you’ll come away with new knowledge and skills to help guide you on your path. Returning for its fifth year, Agile Nigeria Conference is a practical and hands on agile practitioners conference that allows participants to connect and learn from their peers and leaders in the industry,” she addded.

Mrs Osoba said the conference has a strong practical focus and attracts industry practitioners and decision-makers who want to improve their success with agile and lean methods.

“The event provides two days of inspiring agile and lean learning from a dynamic mix of stimulating keynotes and practitioners working on the front line of the industry. We started with a press conference on last week, after the two days conference we have an agile games night to wrap up the conference as well as the future of agile coaching workshop after the conference and multiple agile certifications and workshops happening simultaneously  after the conference.”

She said the event was opportunity to discuss and answer burning questions about agile practices, leadership, transformation and approach in Nigeria and around the world.

She thanked the Board of Trustees, Board of Directors and committee members as well as the Agile Practitioners Association of Nigeria for their support.

Heritage Bank Plc, in partnership with the Lagos Chapter of Federal Government College Abuloma Old Girls’ Association, is positioning women with finding their balances as a roadmap to financial freedom.

This was made known at the maiden edition conference entitled, “OTRFA – On the road from Abuloma” with the theme, “Finding our balance – building a structure for sustainable wealth as women.”

Regional Executive, Lagos and Corporate Banking Division, Heritage Bank, Afolasade Alonge said the institution is championing wealth creation and financial inclusion, especially among women because this is the channel for advancement in dynamic world.

According to her, understanding who you are as a woman will help you as an agent of change to be proactively involved in driving socio-economic transformation and developing the society.

She stated that Heritage Bank is committed to creating wealth and anything that represent women empowerment with its tools and product services that sustain workable structure to help them attain success as daughters, mothers, wives, employers, business owners and citizens of the country.

Presenting the bank’s product service, the Experience Centre Manager of Heritage Bank, Temitope Adegbite explained how Octiplus an all-in-one digital banking application brimmed with wealth management features can help women manage money and plan the future.

According to her, Octiplus grants users access to a bouquet of financial, lifestyle and social networking features with added convenience of converging card-based payments within one application irrespective of the issuing bank.

Giving her keynote address, an alumna, Boma Alabi, SAN, who is the founding partner of Primera Africa Legal, challenged women to play greater roles in empowering other women in their community through networking and robust relationship.

According to her, relationship you maintain is an investment for the future.

However, while calling on women to strive for financial freedom, Alabi enjoined the Old girls’ association to be a force to reckon for good that would impact the nation positively, as they owe the nation the duty to engage in exercising their civic right to vote in the forthcoming election.

A guest speaker, Sola Adesakin, Global Personal/Business Finance Coach stated that in building wealth, every woman must build social capital, thereby being a person of value and intentional on developing networks of relationship for effective investment.

According to her, women who want to attain financial freedom must have the right mindset, enhanced knowledge, right skill-sets and information through financial literacy as a tool to wealth building.

She noted that to achieve financial success women must possess the money mindset skills such as collaborative, risk management, earning & expense management, saving & investing and technological skills.

THE Chairman of Titan Trust Bank, Tunde Lemo, has said the industry has been able to revitalise the economy, notwithstanding the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 and  the challenges of COVID-19 witnessed in 2020.

He spoke during the maiden Wema Bank’s former staff members’ meeting in Lagos.

Lemo, a former Managing Director of Wema Bank, further explained that the economy did not take a plunge during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that it was as if the banking industry foresaw the coming of the pandemic.

“Every bank has migrated all its products to the digital platform and so whether COVID-19 pandemic is restricting you or not, banking business through the digital platform remains unaffected, and this was why we were to improve our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter and stood at 3.9,” he said.

According to him, “the GDP will continue to grow even though last quarter GDP performance was as a result of the lower base effect. The GDP will moderate in the first quarter and it will move up later especially this year which is before the election year. During an election year, we tend to see more inflation which will increase the GDP, there will be a lot of economic activities and it will be inflationary, so that is what I see on the horizon”.

Managing Director, Wema Bank, Ademola Adebise, stated: “That the reunion will create a very strong community and represent the bank as an outside ambassador, working to advance the bank. It’s a welcome development because I believe the reunion will provide members with an opportunity to reconnect with old friends.”

Adebise, who praised the efforts of past Wema Bank staff members, stated that last year, the bank closed with very positive numbers, and the audit had  been completed.

He said: “The accounts have just been republished before the end of March, but it is a much improved performance compared to the previous year, when we were hit by the pandemic. We hope that in 2022, our objective, aspiration will be dominant digital banking in Nigeria.

“Working towards it, we have launched the first fully digital banking ALAT, which will be a platform that will extend beyond the borders of Nigeria; this is our ambition. ALAT’s performance is superb; its performance has given us vessibility in terms of plan equity; every fainting Nigerian looks up to ALAT, especially when attempting to attract foreign investment.

“We believe it is a continuous process, and if there is one constant in life, it is change. Since we launched ALAT in 2022, we have redesigned it twice, so what you see today is a second generation application, and we will continue to provide a human resource to the community, and a lot of coaching is taking place, and people are coming to pick people to coach because we have the DNA that is built in Wema Bank and revolves around digital, so we will continue to reinvent our site, and I have a background in technology, so it is something that we are all passionate about.”

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-backed  last month’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data for Nigeria’s  private  sector  pointed to a substantial improvement in business conditions. Quicker expansions in output, new orders employment and purchasing underpinned the latest improvement.

At the same time, firms were hopeful that higher investments and customer numbers would support output growth over the course of the coming year.

On the cost front, unfavourable exchange rate movements, higher prices for raw materials and rising wages led to       a substantial rate of input price inflation. Subsequently, selling charges were lifted sharply.

The headline figure derived from the survey is the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI). Readings above 50 signal an improvement in business conditions on the previous month, while readings below 50 show a deterioration.

At 57.3 in February, up sharply from 53.7 in January, the latest expansion pointed to a robust overall improvement  in business conditions. Moreover, the latest figure signalled the strongest expansion since November 2019.

A key driver of growth was the joint-quickest rise in new orders for over two years. Firms mentioned a general improvement in demand from both domestic and international markets.

To cater for higher orders, firms lifted their output levels, and for the fifteenth month in succession. Sub-sector data revealed a broad-based expansion with wholesale and retail recording the strongest increase. Services, agriculture and manufacturing followed.

Higher workloads led companies to raise their staffing levels in February, which they did so at a rate that was    the quickest since last July. As a result, wages rose at the second-quickest rate in the series history. Backlogs meanwhile fell sharply.

Sustained periods of output growth as well as improving demand for Nigerian products and services led to higher levels of input buying. To meet future orders, firms added to their inventories.

Vendor performance continued to improve during the month as a result of increased competition amongst vendors, advance payments and timely order requests.

Favourable demand conditions underpinned optimism in February. Firms that foresee a rise in output expect business expansions, higher client numbers and greater investment over the coming 12 months.

Finally, overall input prices rose sharply. Higher prices for a number of inputs, as well as unfavourable exchange rate movements led to a robust rate of inflation. Supportive demand conditions allowed firms to pass on a large proportion of their cost burdens with selling charges rising substantially.

Cadana, a salary on-demand startup has expanded operations into Nigeria following a strategic partnership with Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments Technology Company.

Cadana helps businesses delight their employees by providing modern payroll platforms that allow employees access to their earned salary on-demand, anytime, anywhere. Following this partnership, Flutterwave processes payments for employers and employees on Cadana.

Unexpected bills can leave employees in Africa in distress, distracting them from their activities. The alternatives would be short term loans which could go up to 300 per cent in interest rates with unsuitable loan-repayment systems. Over 400million workers in Africa will benefit from a platform that offers them real-time access to their earned wages, following employer approvals. Companies that use Cadana are able to allow their employees access their earned wages digitally on-demand, instead of having to wait at the end of the month.

Cadana helps People Managers in Africa digitise Payroll, statutory compliance, onboarding, off boarding, reports, time-tracking etc. From logging to payday, Cadana’s time tracking solution automatically syncs with payroll to make disbursement easier, making life easier for people management and small businesses.

“The banking, startups, telecoms, education, governmental and non-governmental institutions etc. and indeed all businesses in Nigeria have a large employee-base that we can serve with our modern salary-on-demand payroll management platform. CEO and Co-Founder of Cadana Albert Owusu-Asare, said. “Our work in Ghana helped us take feedback from businesses and employees and improve our solution. People Managers and business owners wanted a solution that could make their employees more comfortable, reduce money troubles month-on-month and empower them to do more with their wages. We currently partner with businesses like Float, Tendo, KEK Group; one of the largest insurance brokers in Ghana etc. We’re happy that we can easily launch into any other African country with Flutterwave’s help.”

Co-Founder and CTO, Ameer Shujjah said, “Integrating with Flutterwave was easy and offers us more flexibility than imagined. We’re excited to be in Nigeria with their help and as we continue our growth and expansion journey, we hope to continue counting on their help to empower African workers. Cadana is an ecosystem of solutions built to improve productivity for workers in Africa. We handle the employees’ money issues, allowing them more time and ability to focus on doing more with their time and growing businesses in Africa. We have plans to build helpful personal money management solutions on top of our people management platform to make it easier for workers in Africa to create more wealth directly from their wages.”

CEO and Founder of Flutterwave said, “We’re excited to enable startups like Cadana to expand swiftly and quickly across Africa. Cadana’s work providing real time salary access to employees across Africa is commendable and we’re glad that they’re fulfilling their mission on Flutterwave. Our work with startups form a major part of our vision to grow businesses. We’re proud to support their growth and expansion into Nigeria. We’re excited to see their progress as they support employees in Nigeria.”