NIGERIANS opened 15 million bank accounts in eleven months to November 2018, reflecting impact of banks’ efforts to increase access to financial services through savings promotions and other measures aimed at achieving the goal of 80 percent financial inclusion by 2020.

FOR Microfinance Banks, MfBs, operating in Nigeria, year 2018 would not be forgotten too quickly as it opened with the suspension of their customers’ accounts that are without Bank Verification Number, BVN.

Some of our shareholders still get dividend warrants from Registrars after they have mandated to the e-dividend platform. Even I, an active player in the capital market that has also keyed into this e-dividend platform still get dividend warrants after several months that I have registered all my shares in the e-dividend platform. The regulators should keep monitoring the registrars because some of them are understaffed and lack some facilities that would facilitate the processing of this e-dividend.

ONE of the fallout of the cashless policy and rapid deployment of electronic payment channels is online payment.

THE Allianz Group have again hosted the Allianz Junior Football Camp, which since  2009, annually welcomes teenagers from 25 countries to come to Munich for a week of training with FC Bayern youth coaches.

CONTINENTAL Reinsurance Plc has completed the incorporation of a subsidiary office in Douala, Cameroon. This status is a key milestone in its strategy of operating through a network of well-capitalized subsidiaries across Africa.  

THE Lagos State House of Assembly, yesterday, described the allegation by the state government that its refused to form a statutory quorum to receive the 2019 Appropriation Bill as baseless and does not hold water.

FOLLOWING the controversy that had trailed presentation of Lagos State 2019 proposed budget, the State Government, yesterday, said the activities at the State House of Assembly was responsible for the delay in presentation of 2019 Appropriation Bill.
The state Government also disclosed that the 2019 appropriation bill forwarded to the House was N852.317billion, a size lesser than N1.04 trillion approved for 2018 by N193.683 billion.
This came barely two days after Vanguard had published that the State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, allegedly ended the tradition that had trailed budget presentation in the state.
In a statement, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Olusegun Banjo, said that the Governor had perfected every steps to sustain the tradition on budget presentation but his efforts were rejected by the lawmakers who claimed they could not form a quorum for the activities to hold.
According to him, the 2019 Budget was already before the State House of Assembly and was intended to be read before the house on December 24, 2018.
Banjo explained that the Governor had sent verbal information to present the budget on eve of Christmas after the State Executive Council approval on December 19, 2018, but the ceremony was postponed as the House was on recess and thereby could not form a quorum.
The commissioner noted that to meet the traditional presentation, a formal letter was sent to the House on Friday, December 28, 2018, forwarding the contents of the budget.
“It is expected that when the House reconvenes, the Speaker would inform members of the content of the Budget proposal sent by the Governor and take necessary action.”
The Commissioner also disclosed that the size of the 2019 budget proposal forwarded by the Governor to the House was N852.317billion.
Recall that Ambode signed the 2018 Appropriation Bill of the state into law with a total budget size of N1.04tn.

GOVERNOR Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, yesterday, said civil servants contributed greatly to the success story of his administration in the last three and half years, noting that he had released more than N1.2 billion for pensions in the last two months.

AS the year rolls to an end, an investment expert, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, Chief Executive, Financial Derivative Company, FDC, has advised investors to look at investing in the shares of Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Flour Mill of Nigeria Plc and Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc.