Zenith Bank Plc has recorded a significant improvement in its bottom line for its 2010 financial year, as its profit after tax appreciated by 81.59 per cent to N37.414 billion, from N20.603 billion recorded in the 2009 financial year.

Banks and electronic payment switch operators have shunned the Nigeria Central Switch (NCS) by refusing to route their e-payment transactions through the facility as directed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), thus making the facility dormant.

Chairman, Lagos State Micro-Finance Institution (LASMI), Bashorun Sikiru Alabi-Macfoy says Micro-Finance Banks (MFBs) in the country are key to eradicating poverty in the society.

NIGERIA’S premier indigenous engineering company with the strategic vision of providing basic/detailed engineering services, National Engineering and Technical Company, NETCO has announced a record turnover of N5 billion for the year-ended 2010, just as deepwater production in West Africa is said to have risen to as high as 2.5 million barrels of oil per day away from 85,000 barrels of daily oil production in year 2000.

OIL workers’ unions have defended the management of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, against allegations of recklessness in expenditures, saying that it has been very prudent.

THEFederal Government’s plan to develop Inland Container Depots, ICDs, across the six geopolitical zones of the country appear to be underway with motions already set in place to gazette the Inland operated by Containers Nigeria Limited, ICNL, in Kaduna.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) would lead other mobile payment experts to speak at the forthcoming Ennovators Breakfast series organised by Financialtechnology magazine.

AN international oil service and engineering company, Technip Group, has indicated interest to work with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in its core areas of business.

The Makurdi Branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has named Unity Bank Plc the non-settlement bank with the most voluminous number of instruments cleared in the area in 2010.

A United States of American trade delegation to Nigeria has pledged support for the on-going transformation project of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.