Sterling Bank is set to increase its customer base by attracting one million new customers in 2016. Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank, Mr. Yemi Adeola disclosed this at the annual press conference of the banks, adding the bank will also complete ongoing efforts to raise additional fund to beef up its capital base. He said, “As we get ready to go into 2016, we are focussing on four key areas strategically. The first is to improve our funding and customer counts. We intend to increase our customer base by one million new customers in 2016.”

Oando’s cost-income structure has faltered with a sustaining decline in sales revenue and a continuing rise in costs. Turnover went down by 5.5% year-on-year at the end of September but cost of sales rose by 47%, which led to a 36% fall in gross profit. This has been the trend for the third year running. In 2013, the company lost 30.8% of sales revenue and in 2014, a further loss of 5.6% occurred. Profit drops happened for the second year in 2013 and huge losses have followed for the second year in 2015.

FBN Holdings still towers above the rest of the banks in the industry by revenue but rising credit losses have robbed it of significant profit capacity this year. Impairment charges for credit losses made an upsurge of about 250% year-on-year at the end of the third quarter to stand at N46.64 billion. That has far exceeded the total impairment charges of N25.94 billion the bank made in the whole of 2014.

The Managing Director, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Alhaji Gimba Ya’u Kumo, said last week that some 68 million Nigerians were improperly housed. Ya’u Kumo stated this in Abuja at a civil society interface organised by Initiative for Leadership and Economic Watch in Nigeria (ILEWN), a civil society organisation.

A Dutch Appeals Court ruled weekend that Royal Dutch Shell can be held liable for oil spills at its subsidiary in Nigeria. Judges in The Hague ordered Shell to make available to the court documents that might shed light on the cause of the oil spills and whether leading managers were aware of them. Friday’s ruling overturned a finding by a lower Dutch court in 2013 that Shell’s Dutch-based parent company could not be held liable for spills at its Nigerian subsidiary.