How small businesses can maximise social media, Smoothie Case Study

Some social media web and apps include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, WhatsApp etc are unique and applicable in their own ways to small businesses. There are billions of people on social media web and apps every day and small businesses can take advantage of this.

Facebook and Instagram are photo and video-sharing social media applications used for networking and a platform for small to large businesses to engage customers and potential customers with photos and videos of their products and services.

CBN tasks MFBs on 64 new customers monthly

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed all Microfinance Banks (MFBs) operating in the country to acquire 64 new customers per month.

The directive follows the revised national financial inclusion target that aims at accelerating progress towards the achievement of 80 percent financial inclusion target by the year 2020.

In a letter to all microfinance banks on the revised national financial inclusion target, Tokunbo Martins, director, other financial intuitions supervision department, noted that the CBN held a stakeholders’ forum for all financial service providers in the six geo-political zones in the first and second quarters of 2019 which was attended by representatives of the MFBs. The objective of the forum was to expose stakeholders in the financial inclusion agenda.

Nigeria’s OneFi secures $5m debt facility for its Paylater mobile platformBy Daniel Mpala on 8 March, 2019

Lagos based finance company OneFi today announced that is has secured a $5-million debt facility from New York and Nairobi-based debt platform Lendable.

In a statement today (8 March), OneFi said the investment will be used to deploy more loans on its consumer facing mobile platform Paylater. The platform also helps users transfer money, recharge airtime and pay bills.

CBN sets N50m capital for Tier 2 microfinance banks

The Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced a Tier-based system for unit microfinance banks in the country.

The apex bank also adjusted the time frame given to the different categories of microfinance banks to recapitalise.

The different categories are the unit, state and national operators.

In a circular to all microfinance banks released on Monday on the ‘Review of minimum capital requirement for microfinance banks in Nigeria,’ the CBN reviewed a circular it had earlier issued to the microfinance banks on October 22, 2018.

The CBN stated that the Tier 2 unit microfinance banks must have a minimum capital of N50m, while Tier 1 would maintain the N200m minimum capital introduced for unit microfinance banks in October 2018.

Full Press release by CBN on SKYE Bank and Polaris

Gentlemen of the Press
1. You  will  recall  that  on  4th  July  2016,  we  took  a  regulatory  action  on Skye bank Nigeria PLC. Specifically, this action led to the resignation of the  Chairman,  all  Non-Executive  Directors  on  the  Board  as  well  as  the Managing  Director,  Deputy  Managing  Director,  and  the  two  longest-serving Executive Directors on the Management Team.

2. At  that  time  the  proactive  action  was  informed  by  unacceptable corporate  governance  lapses  as  well  as  the  persistent  failure  of  Skye Bank  PLC  to  meet  minimum  thresholds  in  critical  prudential  and adequacy ratios, which culminated in the bank’s permanent presence at the CBN Lending Window.

3. The  focus  of  the  action  then  was  to  save  depositors’  funds  and  to ensure   that   the   bank   continued   as   a   going   concern,   being   a systemically important bank. Part of our intention was also to stem the imminent job  losses  to  staff  if  a  liquidation  option  had  been  adopted. 

Reveiew of The Global Customer Segmentation Framework Nigeria by Don Odedeyi Abiodun

It's been a while.

Recently, I was at the launch of The Global Customer Segmentation Framework Launch at the Lagos Business School, Lekki, Lagos.

The Global Customer Segmentation Framework is a research that took an in-depth look into how best to service customers, have a real impact on their wellbeing and further enhance financial inclusion Nigeria (see downloadable pdf of the research at the end of this writeup).

The programme was meant to help organization to do the following Design product(s) and services, Improve product strategy and design, Help to target specific market with tailored product(s) that have direct impact to their needs.

Doing Business in Lagos Part 2 by Don Abiodun Odedeyi

THROWING MONEY IN THE DRAIN, The African way

Continuous exportation of raw materials, importation of finished goods into Nigeria or any periphery countries, irrespective of balance of trade will continue to underdevelop the later so far this action remain in practice.

One of the critical panaceas that I have come to accept (as reason for poverty and solution) is the Structural Development which advocate for delink/break-of-ties (with the core countries) and rigorous homegrown import substitution industries.

This decision did not come from the bin.

The Chinese example is living right with us as it denied twitter a chance to make entry into it country instead released its own microblog version, weibo, in 2009. 

With the world’s population at 7.5 billion and China’s population at 1.379 billion (that’s 18.4% of the world’s population), China remain the largest market among the Developing countries. The decision to shut out twitter and embrace local substitute, Weibo, has interpreted to $11.3 billion in value, about $200 million more than Twitter (Source: money.cnn.com).