Features

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — How do governments control activity in an economy they never really controlled in the first place? That’s an urgent question being asked for those who run the $35 trillion developing world as the coronavirus takes hold. From the slums of Manila to remote villages in Colombia, some 2 billion people ply their trades in a barely-regulated and untaxed informal economy. The effort to contain the spread of a disease that’s so far infected around…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Governments should stop wasting precious time needed to fight the coronavirus after squandering an opportunity to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s head said. “We squandered the first window of opportunity,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The time to act was actually more than a month ago or two months ago.” The WHO chief gave a rare, blunt admonishment Wednesday on the world’s progress against the…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Access Bank Plc, Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, is teaming up with Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote to provide treatment and isolation centers across Africa’s most populous nation as it braces for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The facilities, which will be located across the country of more than 200 million people with a total of 1,000 beds, will be ready within weeks, Access Bank said Thursday in…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) — For Bethany and Derick Hingle, every dollar counts now. In just a matter of weeks, the New Orleans couple — he’s a self-employed photographer, she works at a jewelry store — watched most of their income evaporate as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses. They began calling their banks, securing extensions for credit-card bills from Capital One Financial Corp. and a local credit union. They couldn’t catch a break on a…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa): The Trump administration is revisiting the idea of issuing ultra-long bonds as it grapples with how to finance a $1.3 trillion fiscal stimulus plan, according to people familiar with the matter. President Donald Trump’s advisers are considering, among other options, issuing both 50-year and 25-year bonds as they seek financing for additional federal debt with the lowest cost to taxpayers, the people said on the condition of anonymity to discuss…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) –  The spread of the coronavirus threatens to slow efforts by Ghana to overhaul its insurance industry as companies race to boost their capital levels. “It will certainly have an impact,” Seth Eshun, head of supervision at the West African nation’s National Insurance Commission, said. “Because of Covid-19 there’s a slowdown in general economic activity, which implies that companies’ ability to generate revenue and make savings will be affected.” Insurers…