Nigeria: Press zooms in on W/Bank’s projection of higher per capita income for Nigeria, others

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The projection of the World Bank that Nigeria’s per capita income will return to its pre-pandemic level by 2025 is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Punch reports that the World Bank has projected that Nigeria’s per capita income will return to its pre-pandemic level by 2025.
Per capita income or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area’s total income by its total population.
The bank in its Global Economic Prospects report for January 2024 outlook stated that the country’s economy is expected to witness a gradual improvement in the coming years, based on the gradual impact of macro-fiscal reforms initiated by the government
The Sub-Saharan African region, including Nigeria, experienced a slowdown in economic growth to an estimated 2.9 per cent in 2023, primarily due to country-specific challenges such as higher input prices for businesses in Nigeria.
The region’s three largest economies – Nigeria, South Africa, and Angola – saw their growth rate slow to an average of 1.8 per cent in 2023.
The Sub-Saharan Africa region, where Nigeria is the largest economy, experienced a deceleration in growth to an estimated 2.9 per cent in 2023, lower than the earlier projection.
Nigeria’s growth in 2023 softened to an estimated 2.9 per cent, influenced by various factors including services growth weakening due to a disruptive currency demonetisation policy.
The newspaper says that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, on Tuesday, said it made a profit of N2.548tn in 2022, describing it as the “highest profit since the inception” of the national oil firm.
NNPCL is a state-owned oil corporation established in 1977 and the largest asset holder within the Nigerian oil and gas industry. It is currently commercially driven, a development that took effect after the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act by former President Muhammadu Buhari in August 2021.
This came as the company also revealed on Tuesday that it discovered 52 illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region in the past one week
In a very concise one-page document, obtained from the oil firm by our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday, titled, ‘NNPC Financial Performance,’ the company stated that it posted a loss of N803bn in 2018.
This reduced to N1.7bn loss in 2019, which was then followed by a jump to N287bn profit in 2020, while the company described this as its “turning point.”
In 2021, the oil firm’s profit grew to N674.1bn. It said this was “assurance,” adding that the profit continued to rise, hitting N2.548tn in 2022. The national oil firm said the N2.548tn was its “highest profit since inception.”
In November 2023, the Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPCL, Mele Kyari, said the company was expecting over N2tn in its corporate profit after the release of its Annual Financial Statement for 2022.
The Guardian reports that to deepen its fintech operations in Africa, MTN Group has entered a strategic partnership with Swedish technology firm, Ericsson.
With a focus on providing mobile banking services and financially empowering millions of African citizens, the partnership aimed to increase financial inclusion from first-time consumers to high-end enterprise applications by leveraging MTN’s Mobile Money (MoMo) service on the Ericsson Wallet Platform.
The agreement was inked during a visit by senior MTN Group officials to Ericsson’s Group Headquarters in Kista, Sweden, where the two businesses addressed major strategic priorities and future collaboration.
ITWeb noted that Ericsson Wallet Platform conducts over 400 million mobile wallets and 2.8 billion transactions worth $40 billion every month through communication service providers and financial institutions worldwide.
The companies said the cooperation extension also involves a move to public cloud deployments as well as the development of the Open API services platform, which will help accelerate financial innovation in Africa.
MTN stated: “It will allow entrepreneurs to develop revenue-generating applications and, by utilising continuous integration/continuous deployment, will enable an automated software development and deployment workflow for the MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) fintech platform across all of its African operations.”
The full suite of services would provide MTN’s African customers with access to a mobile connectivity-based financial ecosystem.
In addition to accelerating MTN’s goal of increasing financial inclusion for the unbanked, the service provider will provide innovative financial services to meet the fast-changing digital financial needs of individuals and businesses.
According to the parties, the platform places a strong emphasis on financial technology (fintech), with focus areas including the growth of merchant and e-commerce payments, facilitating national and international money transfers among family members and others (remittance services), advancing banking solutions (banktech), and providing insurance services (insurtech).
With over 63 million MTN active users using its Mobile Money platform in some capacity across 16 African nations, MTN MoMo’s yearly transaction value has nearly tripled from 2018, rising from $76 billion to $204 billion by 2022.
The newspaper says that United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, yesterday, joined the elite group of companies with market capitalisation of over N1 trillion just as its share price value hits N29.9 per share.
At the close of trading, the bank’s market capitalisation hit N1.022 trillion, making it the third most capitalised financial institution in Nigeria, a remarkable lift from N283.8 billion at the beginning of the 2023.
The bank has issued 34,199,421,366 shares. Its N1 trillion market capitalisation feat came after the bank emerged as the highest-performing stock in the banking sector in 2023, underscoring the bank’s robust growth trajectory and unwavering market confidence.
Specifically, between the start of January 2023 and yesterday, the price of UBA shares appreciated by over 250 per cent from N7.6.
Chairman, UBA Group, Tony Elumelu, said that the bank’s remarkable journey in 2023 culminated with its shares being acclaimed as the highest performing stock in the banking sector as he pointed out that the performance among others reflected its commitment to delivering unparalleled value to shareholders and stakeholders alike.
“As UBA celebrates these significant milestones, we would like all our stakeholders to know that we remain steadfast in our mission to drive sustainable growth, foster innovation and create value for its diverse clientele across Africa,” Elumelu said.
“We are witnessing the impact of the business transformation drive UBA embarked on years ago and executed well. Naturally, the market has taken note of and is duly rewarding our efforts. To our stakeholders, we promise that we will continue to work harder, deliver on what we know how to do well and create impacts across geographies where we currently operate.” he added.
Its Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Alawuba, who expressed delight at the bank’s performance in the past few months, said with its unwavering commitment to excellence and execution, the bank continued to set benchmarks in the sector, reinforcing its position as Africa’s global bank of choice.
GIK/APA