January 2012 Blog Posts (9)

The total value of the country’s Foreign Direct Investment, FDI inflows increased by 500 percent last year compared to 2010.



Over 500 new projects registered in the country in 2011 were estimated at a total value of 7.68 billion dollars - equivalent to 11.52 billion cedis. This includes the estimated value of the STX project which is 2.5 billion dollars and Asanteman Home Group limited which is also 3 billion dollars and both yet to be raked in.



Excluding these two projects…

The Access-Intercontinental Bank merger is already yielding dividends to customers of both banks. As part of the integration process, Access Bank has waived the 70 pesewas ATM usage fee for all combined card holders. Customers of both banks can now also deposit money at a wider branch-network of 33 as a result of the merger.



The Head of Corporate Affairs for Access Bank Ghana, Matilda Asante-Asiedu explains, the two initiatives which take immediate effect are the first dividends of…

The Bank of Ghana has released additional 104 million dollars onto the market today to shore up the value of the cedi after releasing 218.5 million dollars last week. 74 million dollars of this new amount will go to support the country’s oil imports needs with the remaining 30 million dollars going into the operations of commercial banks.



Commercial Banks however tell JOYBUSINESS, their demand for more dollars from the central bank was not met even half way as it covered more of…

The World Bank on Tuesday announced the appointment of Makhtar Diop, a Senegalese national, as its new Vice President for Africa. He succeeds Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili who will return to Nigeria in early May after serving as the region's Vice President since 2007.



Diop, the World Bank's Country Director for Brazil since 2009, will take up his new position on May 6th. A…

The banks that made it to the top 50 African banks are Zenith, FirstBank, Guaranty Trust, Access, UBA and Fidelity. Others are First City Monument, Diamond, Skye, Stanbic IBTC, and EcoBank Nigeria.



Banks in Nigeria beat other African countries in the number of banks it has in the Top 50 African banks as published by The Banker magazine in its January 2012 edition just released. The Banker which recently retained its world’s number one monthly publication position above Bloomberg…

South Africa's National Treasury issued a $1.5 billion 12-year bond in global markets that attracted $3 billion of bids, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The bond was priced at a coupon of 4.665 percent, a spread of 270 basis points above the 10-year U.S. Treasury's benchmark bond.

Treasury said in a statement the transaction reflected investor confidence in South Africa's credit rating despite concerns emanating from Europe's sovereign debt…

Kenya's central bank sought to mop up 5 billion shillingsfrom the market on Wednesday through repurchase agreements, a day after a similar effort received zero bids from banks keen on holding onto their liquidity.



Traders said they had anticipated the repo because the bank is keen on staying ahead of the curve with its hawkish monetary stance, to tame inflation and exchange rate volatility.





NAIROBI (Reuters)…

Shareholders of Ecobank Nigeria Plc and Oceanic Bank International Limited, yesterday, approved their proposed merger, just as the merged banks will commence operation as one bank in the new year.



Under the merger scheme, the shareholders approved that all the assets, liabilities and undertakings of Oceanic Bank, including real property and intellectual property rights, be transferred to Ecobank Nigeria.



It was also approved that the 1,600,000,000 issued ordinary shares of…

At this time of the year, there is one burning question in the mind of investors and business decision makers alike, that is: what economic conditions can one expect for the year ahead?



With global economic conditions expected to continue deteriorating in early 2012, much depends on domestic economic activity to prevent SA from stagnating or even dipping into recession as is anticipated for Europe this year.



In Risk Watch this month, we focus on the prospects for…