African Bling

JOHANNESBURG Jan 4 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand fell more than 1 percent against the dollar, and stocks dropped more than 2.6 percent on the first trading day of 2016, taking their cue from weak global markets on Monday after soft Chinese factory data. The JSE securities exchange's Top-40 index hit a session low of 44,564.98 and was down 2.6 percent at 44,610.70 by 0834 GMT. The rand weakened 1.1 percent to 15.6320 to the greenback compared with its Dec. 31 close of 15.4600. "It is a continuation of what happened last year. There is massive risk aversion because China's stocks are down and there are tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran," ETM Analytics analyst George Glynos said. The local currency lost about a quarter of its value against the greenback in 2015, mainly as investors dumped emerging markets in anticipation of higher U.S. interest rates. ...

According to Fastjet statement, prior to this, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) had firmly denied the airline the licence, a move seen by business analysts as a move to protect Kenya Airways as Fastjet already operates the routes that Kenya airways operates. The tussle pitted the Tanzanian and Kenyan aviation authorities leading to Tanzania Civil Aviation (TCAA) scaling down from 42 to 14 a week, a matter that was later resolved. Fastjet, a local budget airline has been upbeat opening domestic and international routes, the latest being the Dar-Zanzibar-Johannesburg. The company is to introduce flights between Zanzibar and Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and Mombasa later in 2016. The Nairobi-Dar route is currently dominated by Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airways, Fastjet plans to cash in on development domestic and international routes through increasing its destinations from Dar es Salaam by focusing on growing its fleet. The new development is hoped to inc...

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) said in its latest Financial Stability Report (FSR) that the sector growth was also the results of remained resilient to internal and external shocks. The report showed that total assets grew by 12.4 per cent during six month to September last, while deposits grew by 6.7 per cent. “The sector was adequately capitalized,” FRS of September said adding “with ratio of core capital to total risk weighted assets well above the regulatory requirement.” The core capital to total risk ratio was 16.7 per cent between March and September 2015 well above the regulatory requirement of 12.5 per cent. BoT said the credit portfolio was fairly diversified as measured by ratio of aggregate large exposures to core capital of 126.8 per cent in September 2015 from 137.0 per cent recorded in March 2015. “The levels were within the regulatory limit of 800 per cent,” the report showed. It added: “Stress testing results revealed that, in aggregate terms, the sec...

The Nigerian currency – Naira – on Thursday staged a major recovery at the parallel market as it appreciated to a band of N225 to N230 to a dollar, compared to N240 to the dollar at which it sold in the last few weeks. According to forex dealers, the naira’s gain was due to surplus supply of the greenback in the market, even as it looked like a lot of speculators would lose their shirts. Information gathered says commercial banks that presently have dollars in excess of $1 billion in their vaults have started taking desperate measures to mitigate currency risk. According to a bureau de change (BDC) operator, banks have stopped accepting dollars because they have too much cash in their vaults. “The reason the banks have too much cash is due to speculation and money laundering. A lot of people have been speculating against the naira and amassed so much cash. Then there are those who have been amassing dollars obtained illicitly and want to launder the money. “So ...