THE LOCAL

  Spain is on the brink of a political crisis. Last week, the country's Catalonia region voted to secede. Spanish courts ruled the outcome illegal. On Tuesday, Catalonia's regional president, Carles Puigdemont, stopped short of declaring independence and called for more talks with Spain. How did we get here, and what comes next? Where is Catalonia, and why do many of the region's residents want independence? Catalonia is a region in Spain's northeast. Barcelona is its capital. For “independistas,” the fight for freedom has been a three-century project, one that can be traced back to 1714, when Philip V of Spain captured Barcelona. (Even today, pro-independence Catalonians insult Spanish loyalists by calling them “botiflers,” or allies of Philip V.) Since then, Catalan nationalists have consistently pursued some degree of autonomy from Spain. By 1932, the region's leaders had declared a Catalan Republic, and the Spanish government agreed on a state of auto...

This was not surprising: the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, predicted in April 2017 that “by the end of the second quarter, or latest the third quarter, [Nigeria] should be out of recession.” The economy only needed to be lifted a little and the year-on-year metric would turn positive. But there is no evidence as yet of more money in the pockets of the predominantly poor population. And as the IMF’s envisaged growth of about 1% for 2017 is well below population growth of above 2%, any potential wealth impact is still far off. Ogho Okiti, chief executive of Time Economics, an Abuja-based consultancy, put it succinctly: “Factoring in population growth, the average Nigerian will still be worse off in 2017 than they were in 2014,” when growth was above 6%. Unsurprisingly, President Muhammadu Buhari was quick to urge caution, saying “until coming out of recession translates into meaningful improvement in peoples’ lives, our work can...

When police raided city billionaire Jimi Wanjigi's homes in Nairobi, Mombasa and Malindi on Monday, it was a sign of how far the wheeler-dealer has fallen from the top echelons of power into the center of a political storm. The Muthaiga, in Nairobi, raid came hours after police ransacked a villa in Malindi and confiscated five AK-47 rifles and 93 rounds of ammunition. While some of the arrested workers alleged they were employees of Mr Wanjigi -- an allegation we could not independently verify -- police said the house on Ngowa Road at Mtangani, belongs to two Italians: Mr Franco Fantani and Mr Giovanni Ferliga. NASA Mr Wanjigi, a tenderpreneur of presidents Daniel Moi and Mwai Kibaki, and the early years of the Uhuru regimes, is credited with being a key financier of Mr Raila Odinga's Nasa and having played a key role in its campaigns as the funds mobiliser. The raid came on a day Nasa leaders announced that they would start a nationwide series of rallies starting Tu...

While cash is still dominant, the shift to digital banking increasingly is becoming the driving force across our continent. It is no secret that Africa’s high mobile phone penetration, expected to rise to 85% by 2020 (when there will be 498m smartphones in use), is enabling banks to connect with millions of new customers, while the breakneck pace of innovation from fin-tech start-ups shows little sign of slowing. The high number of unbanked and undeserved customers, together with still growing economies and rising demand for more sophisticated financial services, represents a significant opportunity for Africa’s banking industry to provide new and innovative ways to access financial services beyond the reach of traditional branch and ATM networks. Digitalisation also has the potential to alleviate some of Africa’s greatest economic and structural challenges. Digital collections, such as payments for utilities, will contribute to combining enterprise with the passion and i...

The BoG announced that it had revoked the licences of the banks due to “severe impairment” of their capital. Their collapse sent shock waves across the financial sector in the West African nation, with some analysts concerned that this was just the tip of the iceberg and other banks were at risk of contagion.  The BoG, which moved quickly to investigate the liquidity levels of the remaining 34 commercial banks in the country, found that seven banks failed to meet the minimum capital requirement of C120m ($26m). The vulnerable banks were eventually able, with the assistance of the BoG, to prove that they could recapitalise to the minimum requirements and avoid the same fate as the two liquidated banks. However, following the scare, the Bank of Ghana mandated that all commercial banks in the country would need to set aside by the end of December 2018 a minimum of C400m in capital or have their licences revoked. This figure is three times more than the previous minimum ...