India has a new rule which makes it harder for foreign ecommerce operators (usually American companies) to do business in the country. The rule is so challenging that Amazon has pulled down 400,000 products from its Indian store. Flipkart, controlled by Walmart, will take down 25% of its inventory to comply with the rule.

One hopes that Donald Trump does not read the news and impose restrictions on Indian software services in U.S. But let me not waste your time on what India wants to do with Amazon and Walmart. Let us focus why these companies do not want to enter Nigeria with the same zeal and energy.

Sure, we know why but yet India has the same challenges as Nigeria (minus TRUST) and the American firms are investing to fix those issues. I call on Amazon and Walmart to open stores in Nigeria: we will not even bother if they want to ship from Arkansas or New York. As India gives them troubles, Nigeria will welcome them. Of course, they have to come with their own “post offices” if they want to make ecommerce a business!

Amazon  has been forced to pull an estimated 400,000 products in India after new regulation limiting e-commerce businesses went into force in the country today.

First announced at the end of 2018, the new regulation imposes a ban on exclusive sales, prevents retailers from selling products on platforms they count as investors, and it applies restrictions on discounts and cashback promotions.

That’s hugely problematic for Amazon and Flipkart,  its rival that’s owned by Walmart following a $16 billion investment last year. After a 2016 ruling prevented it from owning inventory, Amazon restricted its system so that its own products were offered by entities that it jointly owned with local partners. However, the newest regulation forbids it from working with organizations that it has ownership of, hence it is estimated to have pulled as many as 400,000 products from sale in India, according to a New York Times report.

The same report suggests that Flipkart could pull as many as one-quarter of its products in order to comply with the rule, according to analysis from consulting firm Technopak.

INEC, Nigeria’s electoral commission, has published the complete lists of state-level candidates for governorships and state houses of assembly. Download the governorship list here, and for state house here. Note that the ruling party, APC, does not have candidates in Rivers and Zamfara states: call it own-goal in the worst way possible due to intra-party rivalry.

For the academics here, there is a Call for Papers from the New Development Bank (NDB is the BRICS bank serving Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in their developmental paradigms). You can call it the World Bank (or even IMF) for BRICS. They offer some awards and also give you platforms to make a case before scholars.

CALL FOR ESSAYS
FINTECGRITY: LEVERAGING FINTECH SOLUTIONS FOR ENHANCING INTEGRITY IN FINANCIAL SECTOR

(Submission Deadline: February 28, 2019)

8-Dec-2018

On the eve of the International Anti-Corruption Day (December 9, 2018), New Development Bank (NDB) invites you to submit reflection pieces in the form of short essays on the topic, “Fintecgrity: Leveraging Fintech solutions for enhancing Integrity in financial sector”. NDB invites you to submit original contributions that address any one of the following topics:

• How can innovative fintech solutions promote transparency in financial sector?

• Can open access of data facilitated through fintech solutions enable effective monitoring of public funds?

• How do, features of trust and transparency often cited in favor of the distributed ledger technology, assist in fighting corruption?

• How can big data analytics and artificial intelligence assist financial crime and anti-corruption investigations?

• What role does public policy have to play in ensuring effective deployment of fintech solutions for fighting financial crime and corruption?

Essays submitted shall be considered for awards for best two submissions.

NDB is particularly interested in essays (authored either individually or jointly) with practical orientation demonstrating a) an existing use-case of a technology solution in the above areas, b) a new proposal with possible technology features, or c) nature of security and other controls required for leveraging fintech solutions for the stated purpose. This listing is of course not exhaustive, though the scope of essays should be with reference to the areas listed above.

For further information and details of the competition, please refer to the attached Call for Essays

What is New Development Bank?

At the fourth BRICS Summit in New Delhi (2012), the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa considered the possibility of setting up a new Development Bank to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies, as well as in developing countries. They directed Finance Ministers to examine the feasibility and viability of this initiative, to set up a joint working group for further study, and to report back by the next Summit in 2013.

Following the report from the Finance Ministers at the fifth BRICS summit in Durban (2013), the leaders agreed on the feasibility of establishing the New Development Bank and made the decision to do so. It was also agreed that the initial contribution to the Bank should be substantial and sufficient for it to be effective in financing infrastructure.

During the sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza (2014), the leaders signed the Agreement establishing the New Development Bank (NDB).

How the U.S. interest rates have gone downwards could explain the impacts of policies. Just in less than four decades, U.S. Federal Reserve (central bank of the U.S.) has moved rates from high 20% to now sub-3%. Thinking deep into that, U.S. makes debtors smarter while savers frowners. But as those happen, asset values are inflated with cheap capital everywhere. But do not worry – they have systems to seem to manage those until there is a black swan. Irrespective, the people that call the economy, Wall Street, love it.

I began my career in the days when the fed funds rate hit 20%. In the late 1980s, it topped out just short of 10%. At the end of the 1990s, it peaked at 6.5%. Even many millennials can remember June of 2006, when the Fed’s rate hit 5.25. The suggestion that 2.5% will be this cycle’s top is staggering. (Fortune Newsletter)

In Nigeria (certainly we have different economic structures), the fight on inflation has not given Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) tools to use cheap rates to inject liquidity and stimulate the economy. Yet, we need to find a way since markets have become globalized.

If you have a nation that gets capital from the (Fed) basis of 2.5% and another at 12%, there is no strong basis to compete against because another has asymmetric advantage.

See it this way: if a bank gets capital from CBN at 14% (the current rate) and has to keep 1% to meet required ratios from NDIC (the deposit insurance commission), by the time it takes care of operating expenses, it cannot practically lend below 17%. Then imagine if the bank has started with 2.5%, you will then experience lending interest rate of say 5% in Nigeria.

The Central Bank of Nigeria decided unanimously to keep the benchmark interest rate steady at 14 percent on January 22nd 2019, as widely expected. The last time policymakers changed rates was in July 2016, when they lifted the monetary rate by 200 bps. The Committee voiced concerns about inflationary pressures in the first half of the year, amid an increase in spending ahead of general elections and disruptions caused by recent flooding. In December, the annual inflation hit a 7-month high of 11.44% from 11.28% in November, well above the Bank’s target of 6.0%–9.0%. The Nigerian economy is projected to expand 2.28% this year, the CBN Governor Emefiele said. Interest Rate in Nigeria averaged 10.94 percent from 2007 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 14 percent in July of 2016 and a record low of 6 percent in July of 2009.

This is also the reason why when people accuse banks of high interest rates rip-off, I laugh because commercial banks are not to be blamed: the CBN sets the basis and banks cannot operate below the basis if they want to be in business. If CBN says rates begin at 14%, there is no sense for accusing banks of not giving cheap capital in Nigeria.

Fourteen percentage is a bad basis! Yet, CBN cannot be blamed as it has to fight inflation. The solution is redesigning the economy to improve productivity and move all from the spend-all-till-you-drop mentality in Nigeria.