BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Kenya, Tanzania fine GTBank; Naira scarcity pushes Nigeria’s inflation to 22.04%; 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:

· IMF projects global recession amid fear of bank crisis spreading

· FIRS, Customs collect N12.7trn revenue in 2022

· Naira scarcity pushes Nigeria’s inflation rate to 22.04%

· Kenya, Tanzania fine GTBank for breach of regulations

· IMF economic projection for Nigeria sub-optimal —CBN gov, Emefiele

Summary:

For the third consecutive month in 2023, the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services has increased.

The National Bureau of Statistics’ latest CPI report released on Saturday showed that inflation rose to 22.04 per cent in March 2023, up from 21.91 percent in the previous month.

Looking at the trend, the March 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.13% points when compared to February 2023 headline inflation rate.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said the growth projection of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Nigeria’s economy in 2023 was sub-optimal.

Emefiele said the economic projection is less than CBN’s assessment. He made this known on Saturday at the ongoing World Bank/IMF Spring meetings in Washington DC, which ends on Sunday.

Ripples Nigeria previously reported that the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) projected Nigeria’s economy will grow by 2.88 per cent.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has fined Nigerian lender, Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) for breaching its regulations.

READ ALSO:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Foreign investments drop to $5.3bn; Nigeria spends N3.63trn on debt servicing in 2022; other stories

Ripples Nigeria discovered from GTBank financial report released on Friday that the lender was sanctioned for failing to comply with the CBK banking act 28/50 (1).

The bank was also penalised for failing to comply with the cash reserve requirement put in place by the Kenyan apex bank in 2022. Consequently, GTBank was fined N11.25 million for both infractions.

The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has revealed that cashew nuts export from the country hit N116bn ($252m) in the year 2022.

This was disclosed by the Executive Director of NEPC, Dr. Ezra Yakusak, during the launch of an export certification program for organic cashews held in Abuja on Thursday.

Yakusak also revealed that Nigeria has now become the fourth highest producer of Raw Cashew Nut (RCN) in Africa, with approximately 19 states involved in its production.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) saw a significant rise in their revenue collection, reaching N12.7 trillion in 2022.

This represents a 46.8% increase from the N8.7 trillion the two agencies collected in the previous year.

The figure was captured in a recent revenue data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Financial and economic experts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have projected a possible global recession amid fear of a financial crisis in the global banking sector.

IMF predicted a one in seven chance of recession gripping global economies due to the measures taken by financial regulators to tackle soaring inflations.

It stated this in its latest World Economic Outlook as world financial leaders meet in the U.S. for the ongoing Spring Meeting slated to hold for seven days, April 10 to 16.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Otedola loses N1.29tn as investors drop First Bank shares amid his Transcorp move

Shares of First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Holdings crashed in the Nigerian capital market this week after reports emerged that billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, was mopping up shares in another equity, Transnational Corporation (Transcorp).

The week before news filtered in that Otedola had bought shares in Transcorp, First Bank shares appreciated by 0.4 percent from N11.05 to N11.10 kobo.

The development pushed FBN to the top of the gainer’s list in the capital market.

FBN’s share traded flat on Tuesday, but following reports that Otedola, who has the highest stake in First Bank Holdings, is ready to splash the cash on Transcorp shares, investors in the capital market developed cold feet towards FBN’s shares, leading to its crash from N11.10 kobo to N10.45 kobo per share on Friday.

On the tech scene, Lazerpay, SpaceX, Twitter, Amazon, OurPass, ChatGPT, Sumitomo, OpenAI, Google, Alibaba, Twitter were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

Nigerian crypto and web3 company, Lazerpay, has halted its operations after its inability to raise funding.

Also, Italian data protection agency has announced plans to approve ChatGPT’s resumption in Italy if it meets the data watchdog’s demands.

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