Author: Julius Alagbe

PEBEC Reaffirms Commitment to Collaborate With MDAs on Service Delivery The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has reiterated its commitment to collaborate with Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure seamless, responsive, and business-friendly service delivery across the nation. The Director-General of PEBEC, Mrs Zahrah Mustapha-Audu, said this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja. She commended the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on the recent nationwide clearance of driver’s licence backlog. She acknowledged the prompt and comprehensive actions taken by the corps in response to service delivery concerns regarding delays in the production of driver’s licences nationwide. “Following…

Bank of England December Rate Cut Now ‘Very Likely’ – CEO UK inflation rate rising to 3.6% in the year to October, a fall from the three preceding months, means a Bank of England rate cut in December is now very likely, predicts the CEO of global financial advisory giant deVere Group. The prediction from Nigel Green comes as the latest official figures show that consumer price inflation in the UK has cooled to 3.6% in October, down from 3.8% in September. At the same time, the Bank of England’s November Monetary Policy Committee minutes reveal the committee voted by…

Cloudflare to Acquire Replicate to Build Most Seamless AI Cloud for Developers Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the leading connectivity cloud company, announced it has agreed to acquire Replicate, an AI platform that makes it easy for developers to deploy and run AI models. The company said this acquisition will accelerate the company’s vision to make Cloudflare Workers the leading end-to-end platform for building and running scalable, fast, and reliable AI applications. Soon, developers building on Cloudflare will be able to access any AI model globally with just one line of code. AI was initially the domain of academics and advanced…

Dollar Mixed Ahead of U.S Jobs, CPI Data The US dollar traded on a mixed note against trading partners, the euro, the British pound, and the Japanese yen ahead of jobs data amidst weeks of speculation over a Fed rate cut in December. The Euro to Dollar (EURUSD) exchange rate has consolidated around 1.16 on Tuesday after finding support below 1.15 in early November. The dollar gained 0.46% to 155.26 yen on Tuesday. The dollar reached nearly JPY155.5 in early European trading today.  The Japanese economy contracted at an annualised rate of 1.8% in Q3, which was slightly less than…

Nigeria’s Foreign Reserves Climb to $46 billion, CBN Says Nigeria’s foreign reserves surged past $46 billion, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Yemi Cardoso, said at a forum. Cardoso, who was represented by the Deputy Governor of the Economic Policy Directorate, Dr. Muhammad Abdullahi, disclosed this at the opening of the Monetary Policy Department’s 20th anniversary colloquium at the CBN headquarters in Abuja He said it was the first time the country had reached such a level since 2018, adding that the number could cover over 10 months of imports. According to the deputy governor, lending rates may…

Reps Move to End Oil Revenue Leakages, Strengthen Export Oversight  The House of Representatives (Reps) Ad-hoc Committee on Pre-shipment Inspection of Exports and Non-remittance of Crude Oil Proceeds says Nigeria is at a critical economic crossroads. The committee said it said that there was therefore the urgent need to plug massive revenue leakages undermining national development. The Chairman of the committee, Rep. Seyi Sowunmi (LP-Lagos) said this at the opening of a capacity-building workshop on Pre-Shipment Inspection and Non-Remittance of Crude Oil Proceeds in Abuja on Tuesday. Sowunmi said that though for decades, crude oil had been the primary export…

NEM Insurance Settles N30.54 Billion in Claims in Q3 NEM Insurance says it has paid claims totalling N30.54 billion as of third quarter of 2025, representing a 105 per cent increase over the N14.94 billion paid in the corresponding period of 2024. The company in a statement on Tuesday, said this underscored its commitment to prompt claims settlement. In a review of the interim financials, the statement said that the underwriter also showed substantial operational improvements year-on-year. It noted that insurance revenue rose sharply to N107.44 billion in the third quarter of the current year, up from N69.52 billion in…

Global Stock Market Sell-Off Deepens Amid AI Worries UK stocks have fallen sharply as the global sell-off deepens amid worries about an ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) spending splurge. London’s FTSE 100 fell by around 100 points, down about 1 per cent, shortly after markets opened on Tuesday. European stock markets also sank into the red in early trading, with Germany’s Dax down around 1 per cent and France’s Cac 40 tumbling by about 1.5 per cent. This followed another day of losses in the U.S. and a bruising session for Asian stock markets overnight, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping by…

The naira lost ₦5.60 per US dollar transaction at the Nigerian foreign exchange market to close at ₦1,448.0304 as demand pressures linger.

Fitch Affirms Angola at ‘B-‘ with Stable Outlook Fitch Ratings has affirmed Angola’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘B-‘ with a stable outlook. Ratings analysts stated that Angola’s ratings reflect weak governance indicators, high inflation relative to peers, high levels of foreign-currency-denominated government debt and one of the highest commodity dependences among Fitch-rated sovereigns. These constraints are balanced by current account surpluses and international reserves above peer medians, which provide some buffer against lower oil prices and still-low concessional financing, it added. Fitch analysts expect Angola’s current account surplus to narrow to 1.4% of GDP in 2025, 0.6%…