By Chijioke Ohuocha

LAGOS (Reuters) – Africa’s Ecobank expects its new digital banking platform to help to boost its customer base across the continent to 100 million from 13 million by 2020, it said after announcing that it had signed up 1.5 million personal accounts through the mobile app.

Ecobank has operations in nearly 40 African nations, some of which have been pressured by the commodity price slide and unfavourable currency swings that have prompted the bank to strengthen its focus on the relatively stable consumer market.

“We have brought financial services to the mobile phone … to have instant account, payment and receipt across Africa,” Ecobank’s head of consumer banking Patrick Akinwunta said on Wednesday, adding that digital operations will also reduce the company’s cost base.

Shares in the bank were down 2 percent on Wednesday at 9.80 naira, having shed 2.7 percent so far this year. The shares fell by 39 percent in 2016 after a drop in nine-month pretax profit to $281 million in October from $398 million a year earlier.[nFWN1CY13Q]

Though Ecobank generates about 40 percent of its business in recession-hit Nigeria, where several lenders have adapted their business models after low crude prices put pressure on previously lucrative oil and gas loan books, Akinwunta said there potential for significant growth at low cost because only a third of Africans have bank accounts.

(Editing by David Goodman)

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HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe is likely to produce 205 million kgs of tobacco this year, slightly more than 2016, with sales of its main export likely to improve dollar supplies in the cash-strapped economy, an industry official said on Wednesday.

Marking the start of annual tobacco auctions in Harare, Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board spokesman Isheunesu Moyo said output would climb from 202 million kgs in 2016 after more farmers grew the crop.

Tobacco earns more than gold and platinum.

Moyo said tobacco buyers had borrowed $700 million offshore to purchase the crop from farmers. The merchants process the leaf before exporting it, mostly to China, the largest investor in the Southern African country.

Zimbabwe is desperately short of dollars due to its moribund economy, although traditionally liquidity improves during the tobacco-selling season as cash is brought into the country.

Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said tobacco farmers would be allowed to withdraw $1,000 from banks per day to allow them to purchase farming inputs for next season.

Cash shortages in the last 12 months have forced banks to impose daily maximum withdrawal for most Zimbabweans of sometimes as little as $50 per day.

President Robert Mugabe’s government blames the shortages on the illegal export of U.S. dollars, weak commodity prices and falling remittances from Zimbabweans in the diaspora.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Ed Cropley)

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HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe is negotiationg a new deal to continue importing power from South African utility Eskom to make up for shortfalls in generating capacity at its Kariba hydropower station, the energy minister said on Monday.

In January last year Eskom agreed a one-year deal to sell up to 300 megawatts of capacity to Zimbabwe, which was facing biting shortages of electricity caused by low water levels in the Kariba dam. Generation capacity fell to a low of 275 MW from 750 MW, causing widespread blackouts.

Samuel Undenge told reporters after a meeting between Eskom and state power utility ZESA Holdings that the two utilities were still discussing how much Eskom would supply to Zimbabwe, adding that imports would be paid for upfront.

“I don’t want load shedding (scheduled power cuts) to return and we have been assured of continued support from Eskom so that we continue to have the country supplied with power,” he said.

Officials from Eskom and ZESA did not comment.

Undenge said customers should pay their bills to ZESA, to enable the company to settle its Eskom debt, which stood at $40 million at the end of February.

ZESA is owed $1 billion in unpaid bills by customers, including government departments.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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DUBAI/LAGOS (Reuters) – Abu Dhabi-listed Etisalat is considering a sale of its stake in Etisalat Nigeria after the local unit defaulted on a $1.2 billion loan payment but wants the unit’s debt restructured before it starts the sale process, two sources told Reuters.

Etisalat is due to meet with local lenders in Nigeria on Tuesday or Wednesday to discuss the loan default, the source said, adding that the Abu Dhabi listed company was keen to resolve the loan issue and would look for a good price to sell its stake.

Ahmed Bin Ali, senior vice president at Etisalat, said Etisalat Group does not comment on rumours or market speculation. Etisalat Nigeria could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Stanley Carvalho and Chijioke Ohuocha; editing by Jason Neely)

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LAGOS (Reuters) – Hard currency curbs imposed by Nigeria’s central bank have helped boost local food production, central bank governor Godwin Emefiele was quoted as saying by two newspapers on Sunday.

Entrepreneurs have criticized a halt to hard currency allocations by the central bank for the import of almost 700 goods to prop up the naira hammered by a fall in oil revenues and boost local food production.

“This policy was basically borne out of necessity to conserve foreign exchange,” Emefiele said in a speech, referring to the import ban, according to Vanguard newspaper.

“This policy needs to be supported not just in response to the pressure on the naira but as an opportunity to change the economy’s structure, resuscitate local manufacturing and expand job creation for our citizens,” he added.

Emefiele also said Egypt’s experience with a free float of its currency did not convince him Nigeria should follow suit as it might increase inflation.

“I have heard commentators suggest we should follow Egypt’s example and free the naira,” Emefiele said, according to THISDAY newspaper.

“What they do not tell you is that following their currency adjustments inflation today in Egypt is over 30 percent. Is that what we want in Nigeria?” he said.

The central bank has faced criticism from investors for keeping the naira at a rate some 30 percent above the black market where entrepreneurs are forced to go amid dollar scarcity on official channels.

The central bank was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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