Boasting Africa’s largest economy and population, but facing a number of structural constraints, Nigeria is a market ripe for digital disruption. It benefits from a high level of internet and mobile penetration. It also skews young: by 2020, roughly half of the country’s population will be under the age of 25. A number of start-ups have gained traction over the past decade, from retailers…
After three consecutive years of losses the All-Share Index (ASI) accomplished a marked recovery in the second half of 2017. As of August 2017 the ASI had gained 37.9% year to date (YTD), compared with a 2.9% YTD loss for the same period in 2016, and a 6.2% loss over the course of 2016. Despite the double-digit YTD gain, the market had still been in negative territory as recently as May 9,…
Nigeria’s inclusion in JPM organ’s emerging markets bond indices for eurobonds is not affected by its exclusion from the index series for Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) bonds, and with good reason. Eurobonds are broadly traded on the sovereign’s external balance sheet, whereas the FGN exclusion was driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s foreign exchange measures and policies. The…
Nigeria was included in JPM organ’s Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) index series for local currency government bonds with effect from October 2012, with a 1.5% weighting, and was removed from it in September/October 2015. The inclusion followed the removal of the one-year lock-in period for foreign investors in government bonds by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). This decision…
As is the case in most of Africa’s capital markets, trading activity in Nigeria tends to be dominated by institutions. Retail traders and investors once played a more active role in the country’s capital markets, but the market drop following the 2008 margin lending crisis affected participation from that grouping. “In 2008 retail investors got burned in the market and it has taken them…
Nigeria’s National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) is advancing with its plan to transition from a compliance-based model of supervision to that of risk-based supervision (RBS) in 2017. According to the World Bank, RBS is a system in which the supervising authority allocates time and resources to firms based on the level of risk inherent to their balance sheet. The supervisor assesses systemic…
Given Nigeria’s large informal workforce – estimated by the IMF to contribute 50-65% of GDP – a significant segment of the population is not captured by the country’s pension scheme. Without some form of pension, this portion of the population becomes increasingly financially vulnerable with age. To combat this, Nigeria has taken steps to institute a micro-pension scheme similar to…
When President Muhammadu Buhari took office, he prioritised rehabilitating Nigeria’s ageing refineries with the notion that replacing imported fuels with local production would be an important contribution to solving several pressing problems in the country, including expensive fuel imports. There is plenty of room for the refineries to improve their performance; average capacity utilisation…
Long one of the top two crude exporters in Africa, Nigeria’s gas output has also served as a source of increasing revenue. However, changes are afoot in both segments as a result of the shifting global crude trade patterns and the rising levels of domestic consumption, which may in turn have long-term implications for the country. Oil Global crude markets are in a transitional phase as…
Nigeria’s downstream fuels sector has endured a tumultuous few years, from a nationwide strike over consumer costs to corruption scandals. However, more recently a measure of stability has returned to the market, aided in part by government reforms to the pricing framework for fuels. The sector is a crucial one for the country given that the growing 186m-person population is increasing energy…
