Hello, and welcome to 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:
• Bitcoin transactions by Nigerians increase to $38m despite CBN ban
• Nigeria’s inflation rate falls to 17.75% in June
• Nigeria to borrow another N4.89 trillion to finance 2022 budget
• British police seize £294m haul of cryptocurrency
Summary:
Bitcoin transactions rose in Nigeria for the month of June when compared to the preceding month as the cryptocurrency ban by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) failed to reduce transactions.
According to trading on two cryptocurrency exchanges, Paxful and LocalBitcoins, the volume of transactions rose by 8.71 percent in Nigeria.
Nigerians traded bitcoin worth $38 million last month, increasing their trade value from the $34.92 million of May, making the country number one in Africa’s bitcoin transaction.
Nigeria’s inflation rate decreased to 17.75 percent in June, from 17.93 percent in May according to the ‘Consumer Price Index Report for June’, released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.
This is 0.18 percentage point lower than the rate reported in May 2021 (17.93%) implying that while prices continued to climb in June 2021, they did so at a somewhat slower rate than in May 2021.
The CPI is used to measure the average change over time in prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living.
President Muhammadu Buhari has presented to the Senate for approval a borrowing plan of N4.89 trillion to fund the N5.62 trillion budget deficit for next year, increasing the country’s overall debt to N38 trillion.
The nation’s current debt profile stands at N33.1 trillion as at March 31.
The fresh borrowing plan is contained in 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) forwarded to the Senate by President Buhari for approval and set for passage on Thursday.
The British police on Tuesday said it seized record hauls of cryptocurrency totalling £294 million ($408 million) as part of an investigation into money laundering after organised crime groups moved into cryptocurrencies to wash their dirty money.
The police in London said it seized £180 million of an undisclosed cryptocurrency less than three weeks after making a €114 million haul on June 24 as part of a money-laundering investigation.
Speaking on the development, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Graham McNulty, said, “While cash remains king in the criminal world, as digital platforms develop we’re increasingly seeing organised criminals using cryptocurrency to launder their dirty money.”
On NSE ROUNDUP: Uptick in trading activities as investors pocket N41.8bn
The Nigerian stock market recovered from the bearish situation on Friday following the increase in the equity capitalization to N19.77 trillion at the close of the day’s business.
The figure was N41.82 billion or 0.21 percent higher than the N19.72 trillion recorded on Thursday.
The All Share Index was up by 80.28 basis points to settle at 37,947.18 against 37,866.9 reported the previous day.
Investors traded 266.74 million shares and valued at N3.04 billion in 3,065 deals on Friday.
On the tech scene, this week, developments ended on an impressive note with news of a new company acquiring an older company.
One year old healthtech startup CridMD consolidated the acquisition of pharmaceutical company Charisland Pharmaceuticals.
The week also featured the launch of a new accelerator as Nigeria-based GreenHouse Capital launched pan-African fintech accelerator.
Remarks
Thanks for joining the roundup this week. See you next week for another serving. Don’t forget, for the latest news and updates from around the globe, keep reading Ripples Nigeria.
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