SA's Bank Stocks Trading at Massive Discounts, Investor get High Dividend

Banking stocks are trading at massive discounts and are offering historically high dividend yields, analysts say.

The market appeared overly pessimistic about the effect that the downturn in SA would have on banks’ asset quality, said Jaap Meijer, MD of research at Arqaam Capital. "Valuations of most of SA’s banking stocks imply structurally higher bad-loan charges than our [full-year 2017 estimates] or [through-the-cycle] credit-cost estimates."

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) warns of rate Hike Risks for Banks

A SECOND major rating agency has flagged the effect of rising interest rates on South African consumers, saying the hikes pose higher credit risks for banks.
 

Standard & Poor’s primary credit analyst Matthew Pirnie.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Thursday said top-tier banks would face credit losses of between 0.9% and 1.2% on their lending activities this year.

CPC Probs Banks for Customer Rights Abuse

The Consumer Protection Council on Thursday said it was investigating cases of consumer rights abuse by the banking and hospitality sectors of the economy.

 

The Director-General, CPC, Mrs. Dupe Atoki, disclosed this at a stakeholders’ workshop held in Abuja as part of activities to commemorate the World Consumer Rights Day.

She said owing to the rising complaints in these sectors of the economy, the council was determined to pursue the protection of consumer rights with vigour.

Banks Struggle with Excess N1.5trn Deposits

LAGOS — Excess liquidity in the banking system rose to about N1.24 trillion, last weekend, following huge backlog of unmet foreign exchange demand for which the Central aBank of Nigeria, CBN, returned the Naira back-up funds to the banks on Friday.

 

There is also indication that the liquidity overflow will reach an all time high of N1.5 trillion by end of this week, following the maturity of Treasury Bills worth N257.9 billion which will be credited to the banks by CBN.

This is expected to see interbank money rates trending at very low levels with further erosion of margins and yields in money market instruments.

However, financial analysts expect CBN to mop up the unprecedented liquidity overflow with re-issue of Treasury Bills at a predetermined volume to match the desired liquidity level.

FG, IOCs, Banks in Talks over $4bn Debt

Nigeria is in talks with oil majo rs and banks to raise capital for new drilling and to repay up to $4bn in debt that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has accumulated over years of mismanagement.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, told Reuters that he wanted to increase crude oil output to 2.5 million barrels per day by the end of this year. Currently, the country pumps 2.3 million bpd.

SEC to Penalise Banks charging Fees for e-dividend Registration

 

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, is to penalize Deposit Money Banks and Capital Market Registrars for charging fees in the on-going e-dividend registration exercise. Nigeria small investors’ unclaimed dividend currently stands at about N90 billion. Investigations revealed that SEC had been inundated with complaints from shareholders who heeded the campaign and went to banks and registrars to register for their e-dividend. 

Banks resist tighter surveillance of VIPs.....

THE Treasury is proposing that banks and other accountable institutions exercise greater scrutiny over what a bill before Parliament describes as "prominent influential persons".
Greater vigilance is required over such individuals as they are regarded as being more "vulnerable" to bribery, corruption and money laundering. The definition proposed in the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill is broader than the "politically exposed persons" used internationally, which refers to those who hold public office.

 

The Treasury’s chief director for financial investments and savings, Olano Makhubela, said in an interview on Wednesday, on the sidelines of public hearings by Parliament’s finance committee, that a broader definition had been proposed to give recognition to the fact that public figures had counterparts in the private sector who also required greater scrutiny. Prominent influential persons would include top government officials from the country’s president all the way down to municipal managers, as well as company chairpersons, CEOs and chief financial officers.

UK Bank RBS scraps bonuses for retail bank staff

To compensate, the roughly 20,000 staff selling products such mortgages, credit cards and loans to individuals and businesses will get an average 5% pay rise.

 

The bank said the new system was simpler and fairer, and would put less pressure on staff on sell products.

Ghana drops in World Bank ease of doing business ranking

Ghana banks

Ghana’s ranking in ease of doing business has reduced slightly from 112th to 114th in the Doing Business Report, a flagship report of the World Bank which assesses business regulations and the ease of doing business in countries.

The report noted that there is a strong association between performance in the ease of doing business ranking and performance in other measures of economic competitiveness and quality of government and governance.

“Economies that rank well on the ease of doing business also score well on such measures as the Global Competitiveness Index and Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.”

Ghana’s new rank in the previous year’s report – Doing Business 2015 – was 112th after the World Bank revised the rankings in accordance with a change in the methodology of the annual report.

Lloyds Bank rise in third quarter profit- Report

Lloyds Banking Group has said pre-tax profits for the three months to the end of September rose to £958m, up from £751m a year earlier.

 

However, the bank's shares fell as it set aside more money to compensate customers over the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).

NDLEA arrests China-bound man with 108 ATM cards

Officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested a 34- year-old man, Mr. Udeh Onuora Pascal, for being in possession of 108 Automated Teller Machine debit cards.

Pascal was suspected to be working for an international criminal organisation.

October 31 remains deadline for BVN registration- CBN

Abuja - The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) insist saying October 31 remains the deadline for bank customers to obtain their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN).

CBN

Dipo Fatokun, Director, Banking and Payment System Department (BPSD) of CBN re-affirmed this while speaking to journalists on Wednesday in Abuja.

Fatokun said that at the deadline, bank customers that had not enrolled for BVN would not be able to access their accounts.

"Last week Friday the bankers communicated that there is no extension on the BVN.

Banks: Main Source of addressing SMEs’ finance challenge..

 

Access to finance is the major challenge confronting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and banks hold the key to addressing that challenge, according to experts who spoke at the 2015 Annual Conference organized by the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Lagos at the weekend.

Nigerian Bank Stock may dificult Capital Raising to Lenders......

 The ongoing sell-off in Nigerian bank stocks may make it more difficult for lenders to raise Tier – one capital to beef up their balance sheets.

Fitch Ratings, in a note released on Thursday, said Nigerian banks may witness a sharp deterioration in profitability, asset quality, and liquidity and capital ratios in 2015, due to increasingly difficult conditions in which they operate in.

If that were to materialise and banks needed to beef up

Zenith Bank comes up with New Financial Reporting Policy

Zenith Bank

The expected financial report of Zenith Bank’s half-year result will be prepared on the basis of  a new financial reporting style recently approved by the bank’s board of directors, according to a source at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

US Lawyer, standby with New Legal Action over Forex Manipulation on Banks

US lawyers are preparing multi-million-pound legal action - to be lodged in the autumn - against up to 12 banks.

The targets include HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and US banks JP Morgan and Citigroup.

The action will be led by the US law firm Scott and Scott.

It will be of particular concern for the banks and their investors.

 

'Conspiracy'

Frauds Target Current Accounts, say experts

In the first quarter of 2015, it said that 0.89% of applications for current accounts came from criminals.

The figures mean that bank accounts have overtaken mortgages as the biggest source of attempted fraud.

 

In comparison, 0.83% of mortgage applications were fraudulent over the same period.

IKORODU ROBBERY: No business Transaction as Banks begin Repairs of Affected Property –

LAGOS—UNEASY calm pervaded Ipakodo area of Ikorodu, yesterday, scene of  Wednesday’s bank robbery operation which was led by a lady, during which  everyone was held  spell bound  in a shooting spree that lasted close to two hours.

 

Consequently, the affected banks were not open for business transactions, as repairs were being carried out on the damaged property.

Banks in Nigerian ahead US, S/Africa, Europe, Australia, Canada in quality

Nigerian banks rank well in the world in terms of their overall quality, according to Lafferty Bank Ratings, which scores banks world- wide for their overall quality.

A cross border comparison shows that Nigeria ranks about 34.0, higher than South Africa which ranks 30.0, Canada 23.0, US 20.0, Australia 22.0, and Europe 18.0.

Nigerian banks financial ratios are particularly good and their overall ratings will improve considerably when they devote more attention to the qualitative aspects of their annual reports – including clear statements on their strategies (and how they will be achieved), culture, customer satisfaction and so forth, Michael Lafferty, chairman, Lafferty Group said in Lagos yesterday.

Lafferty who was delivering a paper at the Annual Guest Lecture organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN),further said Nigerian banks are at about the same stage of development in retail banking as their Indonesian counterparts, though they lag when it comes to cards and payments.

Tension over Greek Banks' Health

Capital flight from beleaguered Greek banks this week alone could be more than €3bn (£2.1bn), reports say.

Savers are moving funds as time runs out to resolve Greece's debt crisis.

It is understood the European Central Bank (ECB) will hold a telephone conference later to discuss more emergency assistance for the banks.

The pace of withdrawals has gained speed as talks between the government and its creditors have collapsed.

Greece has less than two weeks remaining to strike a deal or face defaulting on a €1.6bn (£1.1bn) loan repayment due to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The country has already rolled a €300m payment into those due on 30 June.