16

Aug

Nigeria’s Inflation Rate Hits 24.08% Amid Forex Scarcity

Due to lack of foreign exchange, Nigeria’s inflation rate in July 2023 reached the highest rate in years at 24.08%. The July 2023 rate increased by 1.29% points compared to the previous month’s rate of 22.79%, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported in a Tuesday report on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The Consumer Price Index monitors the rate of price change for goods and services. On July 25, 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) increased the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) from 18.5 percent to 18.75 percent. The interest rate hike happened amid rising food prices and growing […]

15

Aug

CBN Bars Banks From Dismissing Loans Granted To Directors

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a directive prohibiting banks from canceling loans extended to their directors and associates without its permission. Corporate Governance Guidelines for commercial, Merchant, non-interest, and payment service banks contain the directive. This is in response to shareholders’ repeated complaints about the continuous increase of insider-related loans to directors. The new guidelines, which went into effect on 1 August 2023, stipulated that any director whose facility or that of his related interests underperforms for more than a year must resign from the board and be barred from serving on the boards of banks or[…]

26

Jul

CBN Raises Lending Rate 18.75% To Curb Inflation 

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) concluded its 149th meeting on Tuesday with a resolution to raise the lending rate from 18.5 percent to 18.75 percent in order to reduce the country’s current inflation rate of 22.79 percent. The committee also changed the asymmetric corridor around the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) from +100/-700 to +100/-300 basis points. It kept the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 32.5 percent and the liquidity ratio at 30%. The interim CBN Governor, Folashodun Shonubi, stated at a post-MPC meeting that 11 members participated. Shonubi began unwinding some of Godwin[…]