BUSINESS ROUNDUP: SEC shuts down Stockmatch Investments; 110 bank employees sacked in one year for N81.69bn fraud cases

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:

• MTN Foundation has spent over N25bn to impact Nigerian communities —Odunayo
• Dangote Sugar, Tantalizer, others lift Nigeria’s capital market with N535.3bn gain
• 110 emoloyees of Nigerian banks sacked in one year for N81.69bn fraud cases —Report
• SEC shuts down Stockmatch Investments
• Ardova’s Olu Adeosun resigns, replaced by Moshood Olajide

 

Summary:

MTN Foundation’s Executive Secretary, Odunayo Sanya, has restated the foundation’s commitment to meaningful and sustainable social investment in Nigeria. She reeled out the foundation’s key achievements, including value of finances invested, scale of projects launched and number of communities impacted.

Odunayo revealed that the foundation had spent over 25 billion Naira on a variety of initiatives since its inception in 2004.

She made the disclosures when she visited the 2023 Fellows of the MTN Media Innovation Programme (MIP) at Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos. During her visit, she gave an overview of the foundation— its initiatives and achievements.

 

Dangote Sugar, Tantalizer and other stocks lifted the Nigerian capital market with N535.37 billion at the close of trading on Friday.

This followed the growth in the value of investments at the capital market from N36.42 trillion to N36.95 trillion after five hours of trading today.

Similarly, the All-Share Index was up by 978.2 basis points to close at 67,527.19, up from 66,548.99 ASI posted by the bourse on Thursday.

 

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ardova Plc, Olu Adeosun, has resigned from his position and Moshood Olajide has been appointed as the new Managing Director of the oil and gas firm.

Adeosun’s resignation took effect on August 31, 2023, according to a statement by the company seen on Friday. However, he is expected to perform other official duties till December 31, 2023.

Commenting on his departure from Ardova, Adeosun said: “After over four years of building a market offering leveraging the strength and customer loyalty of the AP brand across multiple channels and partnerships, I believe this is the right point to hand over leadership.

 

The Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) has reported that fraud-related cases led to the sack of about 110 top bank executives and junior workers between the second quarter (Q2) of 2021 and Q2 2023.

According to the ‘Reports of Fraud and Forgeries in Nigerian Banks’’ report released by FITC, the sacked bank staff were involved in a total of 967 fraud cases within the review period.

FITC, a group consisting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and all deposit money banks, said Q3 last year recorded the highest number of employees sacked for fraud-related cases.

 

Borno State-based investment firm, Stockmatch Investments Ltd, was on Tuesday shut down by the capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The regulator said Stockmatch was operating illegal investments, as it didn’t have the approval from the SEC to conduct fund management activities in the country.

SEC disclosed that Stockmatch promises exorbitant rates of returns to lure investors, as a result, the regulator, by the powers under Section 13 (w) Investments and Securities Act 2007, has closed the premises of the firm.

 

On NSE ROUNDUP: Naira gains 2.3%, exchanges for N740/$ at I&E window

 

The naira exchanged for N740.38 to a dollar at the Investors and Exporters window on Friday.

The Nigerian currency gained 2.93 percent compared to the N762.71 it exchanged for the dollar on Thursday. The open indicative rate closed at N775.17 to the dollar on Friday.

A spot exchange rate of N799.90 to the dollar was the highest rate recorded during the day’s trading before it settled at N740.38.

 

On the tech scene, Asaak, Koree, Twitter (X), Cribstock, HEDG, Smartprof, PayHelpa, Kwik, SeekMake, Xpeng, Glamera were some of the names that made the headlines this week.

Cribstock, a Nigerian real estate investment startup, is offering users the opportunity to become landlords within minutes by purchasing shares of properties that generate monthly rent from tenants in Lagos.

Also, PayHelpa, an avant-garde fintech company renowned for harnessing the potential of artificial general intelligence in facilitating seamless cross-border transactions, has introduced its anticipated Student Ambassador Program.

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