BUSINESS ROUNDUP: FG, states, LGs share N786.1bn; Foreign reserves drop by 1.86%; other stories

 

Hello, and welcome to the Business Roundup this week. Here, we bring you highlights of events that happened during the week -from the capital market to the mainstream business activities, while not forgetting the tech/economy build up.

 

Here are the Headlines:

 

• CBN directs banks to get customers’ social media handles to combat terrorism, money laundering
• FG, states, LGAs share N786.1bn for May
• Nigerians spend N247.33bn on electricity in three months, supply drops
• Foreign reserves drop by 1.86% since Buhari’s exit. What you should know
• Airtel Africa to suffer over $22m loss to naira devaluation

 

 

Summary:

 

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed financial institutions to request their customers’ social media handles, as well as other personal information in a bid to combat money laundering and other various offences.

 

The CBN, in a recent memo to the banks, said the directive on strengthening customer due diligence is in line with their regulations on money laundering, terrorism and financing of terrorism.

 

The information banks are mandated to obtain from their customers in line with the customer due diligence are; “legal name and any other names used (such as maiden name), permanent address (full physical address), residential address (where the customer can be located),” CBN said in the statement.

 

 

The federal government, 36 states, and 774 local government councils in the country on Thursday shared N786.16 billion as revenue allocation for the month of May.

 

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disclosed this in a communiqué issued at the end of its meeting chaired by the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Dr. Oluwatoyin Madein, in Abuja.

 

According to FAAC, the total distributable revenue comprised statutory revenue of N519.545 billion and Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue of N251.607 billion.

 

 

In the first three months (Q1) of 2023, Nigerians spent N247.33 billion for electricity supply from Distribution Companies (DisCos).

 

According to data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the amount generated by the DisCos from Nigerians increased by 20.81% year-on-year.

 

During the corresponding period in 2022, over N204.74 billion was expended by Nigerians on electricity supply, while N232.32 billion was generated by the DisCos in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022.

 

 

Nigeria’s foreign reserves down by 1.86 per cent since President Bola Tinubu took over from Muhammadu Buhari on May 29, 2023.

 

On May 26, Buhari’s last official day, the foreign reserves, according to data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stood at $35.14 billion.

 

Buhari left more foreign reserves than he met in May 2015, when he became the President of Nigeria, taking over from Goodluck Jonathan.

 

 

Airtel Africa has said the devaluation of the naira will affect the revenue of the company in 2023, a statement released by the network provider on Tuesday disclosed.

 

Ripples Nigeria previously reported last week Wednesday that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) unified the multiple foreign exchange rates.

 

This led to the devaluation of the naira from N464/$1 last week Tuesday to N770/$1 as of Monday. The increase has been projected to impact companies operating in Nigeria.

 

 

NSE ROUNDUP: Unity Bank, Wapic among top losers as investments drop by 0.01%

 

 

The value of investments in the Nigerian capital market crashed by 0.01 percent at the close of trading on Friday.

 

This represented a N4.09 billion dip in equity capitalization from N32.24 trillion to N32.23 trillion at the close of the day’s trading.

 

Similarly, the All-Share Index dropped by 4.63 basis points to close at 59, 206.63, down from 59,211.26 posted by the bourse on Thursday.

 

 

On the tech scene, OpenAI, ColisMa, Yellow, SVC, InstaShop, Prembly, Ecobank were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

 

OpenAI, the non-profit research company known for its creation of the popular ChatGPT chatbot and powerful language model GPT-4, is making waves with its upcoming project—a dedicated app store for AI software.

 

Also, ColisMa, a logistics startup based in Morocco, has announced securing a funding of US$50,000 from The Baobab Network, an African tech accelerator based in Kenya.

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