FBN Merchant Bank signs MoU with Oxford Group on Nigeria report

FBN Merchant Bank will team up with the global research and consultancy firm, Oxford Business Group (OBG) to produce the financial chapter of The Report: Nigeria 2017, highlighting the pivotal part Nigeria’s banks are playing in the country’s broader diversification efforts by boosting lending to the private sector.

The report will chart the strong performance that the nation’s financial sector continues to deliver at home, despite the challenging economic climate, while also considering its role as a regional gateway. In addition, OBG’s publication will analyse the impact that a tight monetary policy, implemented against a backdrop of lower hydrocarbons revenues and currency volatility, has had on Nigeria’s lenders.

This partnership comes under the three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) between FBN Merchant Bank and Oxford Business Group, which is now in its second year. The report will be a vital guide to the many facets of the country, including its macroeconomics, infrastructure, banking and other sectoral developments.

Lolade Sasore, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications at FBN Merchant Bank, said she expects the bank’s partnership with OBG to explore the effect that the current economy and tight fiscal policy has had on both Nigeria’s lenders and borrowers.

Diana Rus, OBG’s country director, agreed that Nigeria’s dependence on the energy sector, alongside the decision to devalue the naira, had made 2016 a tumultuous year, but said new opportunities in emerging areas of the economy, such as insurance, ICT, agriculture and industry, offered plenty of scope for growth.