Barely five days to the end of the year 2020, the Central Bank of Nigeria has disclosed that a survey carried out by its Statistics Department revealed that the naira is expected to depreciate further in January 2021. The report, titled, ‘December 2020 Business Expectations Survey Report’ added that there might also be a steady rise in interest rate from December till the next six months. The naira witnessed a sharp fall in recent weeks, reaching its lowest on November 30, 2020, when it exchanged for N500/$1. Since then, the dollar has been hovering between N460 and N470. As of Friday, however, one dollar exchanged for 465 in the parallel market. Also, the Nigerian economy had on November 21 slid into its second recession in five years when the economy shrank again in the third quarter. Th...
The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) has urged the banks to strengthen their cyber-security architecture in order to prevent attacks by fraudsters. President/Chairman of Council of the institute, Mr. Bayo Olugbemi, made the call while delivering his remarks at the 2020 CIBN Fellowship Investiture in Lagos, at the weekend. The CIBN at its investiture formally conferred its honorary fellowship awards on 19 distinguished bankers in recognition of their contributions to the banking industry and the economy; 77 associates as elected Fellows while 105 senior management staff of banks and the academia became Honorary Senior Members of the institute at the event with the theme: ‘Financial Services in a post COVID 19 Environment: Strategic Imperative’. Some that were conferred with ...
AHA Taxis Nigeria’s first professor of the Capital Market and former Imo State Finance Commissioner, Prof Uche Uwaleke, on Wednesday described the hike in petrol price from N123.50k/litre to a price band of N140.80 to N143.80 as an indication that the Federal Government was ready to gradually exit the fuel subsidy regime. The Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), in a memo to oil marketers on Wednesday, said that the upward review of petrol price stemmed from existing market realities which were taken into consideration before the new pump price was released. Prof Uwaleke told newsmen that exiting the subsidy regime was necessary in view of plummeting government revenue and the pressure on government finances occasioned by COVID-19. ‘Fortunately for the Nigerian economy...