Financial Services

With regulatory reforms threatening to curb banks’ traditional sources of profit, lenders will need to create risk assets to maintain and expand their margins. Chief among these will be lending to retail customers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which carry significantly higher interest rates than the limited and heavily banked blue-chip corporate market....

Despite a housing gap estimated at 17m units, the provision of affordable long-term financing has remained virtually non-existent. By 2013 there were a mere 20,000 mortgages outstanding, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), at best-case interest rates of 19% over 10 years. In parallel to government efforts to promote the construction of more affordable housing,...

For some time, the dominant school of thought regarding central banking was that focusing on low inflation will eventually lead to greater growth, an increase in employment-generating activities and poverty reduction. However, early and recent evidence of central banking in places such as the US, the UK, Japan and France indicates that supporting selected economic...

The final transfer of privatised electricity assets to successful bidders in November 2013 marked a key moment in demonstrating that Nigerian banks can provide significant long-term funding to a structurally important sector. The acquisitions were financed primarily through debt, while international investors and banks largely stayed on the sidelines. Indeed, of the more...

Nigeria’s banks have been through some challenging times in recent years, but for all their travails, they have turned in an impressive performance and continue to present a compelling narrative to foreign investors. However, the challenging times are not over just yet. West Africa’s largest banking sector – accounting for 74% of regional banking assets and now fully...