Dapo Olagunji, managing director of J.P. Morgan West Africa, says plans are underway to establish a merchant bank in Nigeria, with operations expected to commence before the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Olagunji announced the plan at the Nigeria–Asia Financial
Connectivity Dialogue in Singapore on October 8.
According to a statement on Thursday, the dialogue was
convened by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in collaboration with J.P.
Morgan, Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) and FMDQ Group.
The proposed merchant bank would mark a new development in
J.P. Morgan’s presence in Nigeria, as the country seeks to deepen its financial
markets and attract international investment.
The announcement came during a series of engagements by
Olayemi Cardoso, CBN governor, with financial institutions and market
stakeholders in Singapore ahead of the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in
Bangkok.
On September 15, J.P. Morgan included Nigeria in its new
emerging markets index, assigning a 7.4 percent weighting to the West African
nation.
The index, also known as the Government Bond Index–Emerging
Markets Edge (GBI-EM Edge), which tracks local-currency government bonds across
frontier, launched at the end of September.
The development comes nearly 11 years after Nigeria was
removed from J.P. Morgan’s GBI-EM in 2015.
Nigeria’s 7.4 percent weighting would make it one of the
largest markets represented in the new benchmark, potentially increasing the
visibility of its domestic government securities among global fixed-income
investors.
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