How to know when you’re ready to retire

Are you ready to retire?

Retirement is a new phase of life, characterized by new needs and routines.

Entering it is a choice that isn't made lightly. There are many things to consider and decide before retiring, and many of them are financial in nature.

If you retire now, how much will you have to work with?

Looking at your current retirement funds against

Financial inclusion of Women key to Economically Sustainable Africa

The disparity in the gender divide across digital platforms is not only an equality and social issue, but also a critical challenge to growing economic sustainability, financial inclusion, and a truly connected Africa. Despite significant mobile penetration progress over the last few years in sub-Saharan Africa, the region is home to more than 300-million unconnected women.

The latest GSMA research shows that the mobile sector makes a substantial contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), with approximately $100bn raised in 2014, and it is set to rise to $166bn by 2020. They report that by closing the gender gap in mobile phone access and ownership we could add an additional $170bn to the entire industry by 2020.

Not only will this increase GDP but if we can work towards increasing the number of women that have access to mobile services this will have a trickle-down effect on numerous industries that are critical for growth including agriculture, health, financial services and across the board innovation.

Making Cash Your King Can Be A Wise Move, Tough Financial Times.

From the time the market bottomed in March 2009 through today, cash has been an unloved asset, with many people complaining (and rightly so) that they are not receiving any return on their cash.

Some people have become fed up and looked at places to put their cash where they could enjoy a higher return.

Reaching for yield, however, is not always a good thing to do as the risk associated with higher cash returns can do more harm than good.

Dutch Shell confirms 10,000 job cuts and a steep profits fall

Royal Dutch Shell has confirmed it is cutting 10,000 jobs amid its steepest fall in annual profits for 13 years.

It made $1.8bn (£1.23bn) for the fourth quarter of the year, compared with a $4.2bn profit for the same period the year before. 

 

Full-year 2015 earnings, excluding identified items, were $10.7bn, compared with $22.6 billion in 2014.

The oil firm indicated it would report a massive drop in profits two weeks ago.

Auditor-general Bemoaned state’s repeated failures to comply with Fnance Management Act

 SOUTH AFRICA - Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu has bemoaned the repeated failures of national and provincial government to comply with the Public Finance Management Act, leaving the fiscus vulnerable to waste and abuse.

 

Mr Makwetu said on Wednesday in Pretoria that while there had been a slight improvement in the audit results of the two spheres of government, they incurred R32m in fruitless and wasteful expenditure in efforts to prevent further fruitless or irregular expenditure and losses.
Mr Makwetu was presenting the 2014-15 audit results of provincial and national departments, as well as those for public entities.
The audit covered 468 departments and 301 public entities, which had a combined budget of R1.1-trillion.

Financial Aid for Syria's neighbours -World Bank

Bank officials say there is a substantial financial burden being borne by Lebanon and Jordan.

They are discussing help from rich countries and from Gulf nations.

They say the idea has been well received by potential contributors and hope to have the first funds paid out in four to six months.

 

The arrangement under discussion is one in which the Bank would make loans to Jordan and Lebanon, with aid donors covering at least some of the interest costs.

NNPC Monthly Financial records N378bn loss in 8 months- Report

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has announced a loss of N378.49 billion in its operations for the first eight months of the year.

 

One of NNPC’s subsidiaries, the Products and Pipeline Marketing Company Limited, PPMC, accounted for majority of the losses, as it spent over N300 billion on subsidy and in the repairs and management of its pipelines between January and August.

Increase over financial: Ernst & Young reports $28.7bn in global revenue

EY (Ernst & Young) has reported combined global revenues of $28.7billion for its financial year ended 30 June 2015. This represents an 11.6 percent increase over financial year (FY) 2014 revenues in local currency, outpacing FY14 growth (which had increased by 6.8 percent over FY13).

All of EY’s service lines continued to grow in FY15 ahead of their FY14 growth: Advisory grew 17.6% (vs. 14.4% growth in FY14); Assurance 8.1% (vs. 4.5% in FY14); Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) 15.5% (vs. 6.5% in FY14); and Tax 10.3% (vs. 4.3% in FY14).

EY

Strong performance in the developed markets was led by the US, which grew 12.5% to $11.2billion – its largest increase in 10 years. The US achieved balanced performance across all businesses, sectors and geographies. Elsewhere in developed markets, the UK achieved strong growth, led largely by new major accounts across its audit practice, as well as the strength of its TAS and Tax businesses. EY also saw double-digit growth in its Australian, German and Italian member firms.

EY’s emerging market practices grew by 12.3% overall (compared with 8.7% last year), despite mixed economic conditions in key emerging market economies. India led the emerging markets with 19.7% growth; other strong regions included ASEAN (12.9%), Africa (11.3%), Mexico & Central America (17.3%) and Middle East & North Africa (14.7%).

US Grandparents and Money matters

Nimi Akinkugbe

Nimi Akinkugbe has extensive experience in private wealth management. She seeks to empower people regarding their finances and offers frank, practical insights to create a greater awareness and understanding of personal finance.

 

Last week was National Grandparents Day. The day was signed into law in the United States by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and is the day each year that Grandparents are appreciated and recognised through various activities and celebrations. In our society and in the absence of a formal and effective social security system, the extended family system has evolved into a homegrown version of a more formal welfare system. Grandparents have always and continue to play a critical role within the extended family providing guidance, care and financial support.

Parental, Managing household and its financial needs

It is normal for financial experts to talk about money as if it is merely a matter of naira and kobo. While this may be true, when you are preparing a profit and loss statement for a business, it is definitely not the case when you are dealing with families, especially families with a baby on the way. Emotions come into play. This is why figuring out household finances can sometimes be such a knotty affair; there are so many issues to deal with than just money alone.

 

When you have a baby, your own childhood and the way you were raised will greatly influence how you act as a parent. Perhaps you were an only child. Because of this, you may want to have only one child yourself. Of course, the reverse may also be true and you may want to have a big family, so your children will have siblings you never had.

How To Be Calm Under Pressure

 

Most of us have experienced that sickening moment when you realize you’ve made a serious mistake. Perhaps it was a typo that threw off a financial forecast, or maybe you forgot to reserve a venue for an important meeting that’s scheduled for the following day. The details are different for everybody, but at some point, we’ve all felt that rising tide of dread and panic.

Mistakes and pressure are inevitable; the secret to getting past them is to stay calm.

New research from the Harvard Business School shows that most of us go about staying calm the wrong way. People who welcome the challenge of a crisis—so much so that overcoming the challenge excites them—perform far better than those who try to force themselves to be calm.

Staying composed, focused, and effective under pressure are all about your mentality. People who successfully manage crises are able to channel their emotions into producing the behavior that they want.

In other words, they turn their anxiety into energy and excitement.

This can’t happen if you don’t engage your logic. Yes, making a big mistake is embarrassing. You might get yelled at by your boss, and the mistake might even show up on your next performance appraisal, but, in all likelihood, it’s not going to result in your getting fired, losing your house, living out of your car, or in any of the other catastrophic thoughts that fuel anxiety and keep you from getting focused.

If you struggle with putting things into perspective, just ask yourself two simple questions: What’s the worst thing that could happen as a result of this? Will this matter in five years? Your answers should put a stop to cataclysmic thinking. You’ll probably realize that you’re panicking due to the anticipation of public embarrassment more than anything else. Once you get over that, you can build confidence by picking up the pieces and making things better.

Nigerian Economic situation gets Messier as Crude Oil Prices decline further

The Nigeria’s financial situation may get messier if the prediction of the International Energy Agency (IEA) comes to pass.

According to the agency, oil prices may fall further this year because the world remains “massively oversupplied,” before markets tighten in 2016.

Nigeria economy is experiencing some difficulties because of the decline in the price of crude oil. The country depends on oil as it major source of foreign exchange earnings. It current daily production averaged 1.8 million barrel per day as against projected 2.3 million barrels per day in the 2015 budget of the government.

Crude oil theft coupled with constant pipeline vandalism by militants in the Niger Delta have combined to castrate the crude oil production growth in the country.

Nigeria Naira loses N1.26k to CBN’s policy on FX

The naira on Wednesday lost N1.26k or 0.64 percent against the US dollar at the inter-bank market following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) policy restricting access to foreign exchange by importers of certain items.

 

Consequently, after trading on Wednesday, the local currency closed at N198.58k/$ compared with N197.32k/$ the previous day, according to data from Financial Markets Dealers Quotations (FMDQ).

CBN amends Commercial Agric Credit scheme Guidelines

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it has revised the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) introduced in April 2010.

 

 The amendment is contained in a circular issued by Mr Kelvin Amugo, the Director, Financial Policy and Regulatory Department, CBN, on Tuesday in Lagos.

Despite Profits Improvement, Lufthansa Airline Faces more cost-cuts

German airline Lufthansa, hit by a series of strikes, has warned that more cost-cutting is needed.

The carrier posted a net profit of €425m (£312m; $472m) in the last quarter, up from a €252m loss last year, helped by the falling oil price.

Headwinds stunt Unilever growth prospects

Unilever Nigeria plc, a firm in the fast moving consumable goods sector, has been grappling with macro-economic challenges as 2014 financial results showed the company taking a hit at both topline and bottomline.

For the year ended December 2014, Unilever’s profit after tax dropped by 49 percent to N2.41 billion from N4.72 billion the same period of corresponding year (2013), while sales fell by 7 percent to N55.75 billion.

The foundering performance of the consumer goods giant is attributable to the security challenges in Northern part of the country and intense competition combined with the naira volatility.