In what could easily be called Nigeria's "fintech deal of the decade", Paystack — a homegrown payments solution provider — is in the process of being acquired by US fintech giant Stripe. Although the terms of the deal have not been disclosed, reports...

Ghana’s general election, scheduled for 7 December, is now only two months away. Added to this, a weakening economy, with slower growth and rising inflation, does not tend to benefit the party in power whatever the cause. Real GDP contracted in Q2, f...

Real interest rates (policy rate minus inflation) is one indicator of firepower (rate cuts) available to central banks. High real interest rates (above +2%) in the following countries (with GCC and Hong Kong US$ FX peg regimes excluded)......Indonesi...

The investment to realise that manufacturing potential is likely driven by serving local and nearby regional markets in contrast to North Africa (EU exports) or South East Asia (global exports and China relocation). Our relative scorecard uses the sa...

EM hard currency sovereign bond issuance dropped to US$8.2bn in July, a fall of 60% compared to June, bringing total issuance YTD to US$131.7bn, based on our calculations using data from Bond Radar. For the year so far, 70% of issuance has been IG an...

At the May Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Accra, the Governor of the BoG, Dr Ernest Addison, noted that the 3-week lockdown, which resulted in the absence of physical banking and physical payment systems in the country (as cash transactio...