Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will visit Africa March 7-11, to discuss opportunities and challenges facing African economies in the wake of the global crisis. Mr. Strauss-Kahn will visit Kenya on March 7-8, South Africa on March 9-10, and Zambia on March 10-11.

Managing Director of Spark ATM System, the second largest off-site ATM management company in South Africa, Mr. Mark Sternberg has said that the CBN’s directive on Off-site ATMs will boost to business model of Independent ATM Deployers (IAD) in Africa.

There are clear indications that only few states were able to access the Nigerian capital market for funds via bonds as only nine states have so far raised N108 billion between 1999 to date.

Honeywell Flour Mills Plc has recorded significant improvement in its bottom lines for the third quarter ended, December 31, 2010, financial statements, announcing a 307 per cent growth in it profit after tax to N870.5 million.

The declining trend in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued for the second straight week, as investors holdings in the capital market dropped, last week by N14.71 billion.

Indication has emerged that following the market forecast, Conoil Plc shares last week sustained an upward trend.
Stockbrokers stated that the rise in demand for Conoil shares is an indication of substantial improvement in the company’s performance and favourable return on investment for its 2009 financial year.

The nation’s insurance industry wrote off a whopping N 1.1 trillion in the last three years as provision for bad debts. A breakdown of the N1.1trillion revealed that the 51 insurance and reinsurance companies certified by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) wrote of N465 billion in 2007, N356 billion in 2008 and N282 billion by September 2009 amounting to N1.103trillion

The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has said that it will not hesitate to take stance measure against any insurance

Insurance Consumers Association of Nigeria (ICAN) has assured insurance buyers that the association will at all time protect their interest for as long as their complaints are genuine.

There is a strong protest from insurance companies that made frantic efforts to be in the 2010 federal government’s group life scheme such as African Alliance, IGI and Mutual Benefit Assurance but were shut out of the federal government business for one reason or the other. The scheme only approved 17 insurance companies whilst the Head of Service of the Federation did promised that the scheme would admit more insurance companies but nothing was heard about the promise as at the time the scheme was flagged off in Abuja last week Thursday.