BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigeria’s inflation rate now 20.5%; ePayments transactions in Nigeria hit all-time high… 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:

· Azman Air settles with NCAA, resumes flights

· Nigeria kicks off multi-billion dollar gas pipeline project with Morocco, NNPC lists benefits

· Nigeria’s inflation rate hits 20.5% in August

· ePayments transactions in Nigeria hit all-time high

Summary:

Azman Air resumed operation hours after the company suspended its passenger operation amid disagreement with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other aviation agencies.

Recall that the airline had suspended its operation over its inability to pay the N1.2 billion debt owed to NCAA and other aviation agencies, which rose from the 5% Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) and Cargo Sales Charge (CSC).

Azman Air debt prevented the company from renewing its Air Transport Licence (ATL) which expired in April 2021. The NCAA refused to renew the license, resulting to the firm’s inability to fly in Nigeria’s airspace.

The Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline Project officially kicked off following the Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) signing between ECOWAS and Morocco.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited revealed this in a statement issued Thursday after a meeting at the Sofitel in Rabat, Morocco, between the two countries and ECOWAS.

The 5,600-kilometer pipeline would run through 13 African countries before connecting to Europe via Morocco.

Nigeria’s headline inflation maintained its upward trend as it rose 20.52 percent in August 2022 on a year on year basis, Nigeria’s data agency, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced today.

Read also:BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Angola overtakes Nigeria in crude oil production; Nigerian govt threatens sanctions over flight tickets; and other stories

This is higher than 19.64 percent it reached in July.

Headline inflation has risen steadily in the last nine months, a development that forced the Central Bank of Nigeria to raise the nation’s benchmark interest rate, the Monetary Policy Rate by 250 basis points from 11.5 percent to 14 percent between April and July this year.

The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) has revealed that N33.2 trillion in transactions were completed electronically in August via the NIBSS Instant Payment.

This brings the total value of electronic payment transactions in the last eight months to N238.7 trillion.

According to the NIBSS data, the August 2022 record was an all-time high e-payments value recorded in a month since the platform’s deployment.

On NSE ROUND UP: Investors dump Access Corp, Unity Bank shares as Nigeria’s capital market loses N35.1bn

The Nigerian stock market’s equity capitalization crashed by -0.13 percent at the close of trading on Friday.

This means the total value of investments in the capital market dropped by N35.19 billion from N26.72 trillion to N26.68 trillion after eight hours of trading today.

Similarly, the All-Share Index depreciated by 65.24 basis points to close at 49, 475.24, down from 49,540.48 posted on Thursday.

Investors traded 197.45 million shares valued at N2.94 billion in 3,462 deals on Friday.

This surpassed the 167.60 million shares worth N1.26 billion traded by shareholders in 3,458 deals the previous day.

On the tech scene, mPharma, ECC group, MetaFi, Adobe, Figma, Turaco, MVP Match, Starlink, Meta, Google, Verto were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

A UAE-based metaverse startup MetaFi, during the week announced, securing a $3 million investment to build its first core product.

Also, during the week, Nigeria’s Internet Exchange Point (IXP) announced a partnership with Africa Data Centers to boost expansion into Africa.

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