The CBN Launches the Licensing, Approvals and Other Requests Portal (LARP)
The Central Bank of Nigeria (the “CBN”) through a press release dated September 20, 2023 announced the launch of the Licensing, Approvals and Other Requests Portal (LARP). The LARP is developed to digitise the application process for licences, approvals and other requests granted by the CBN. The goal is for the LARP to eventually replace the current manual process wherein prospective applicants for a CBN licence physically submit their applications to the CBN.
Venture Capital Participation in the African Entertainment Value Chain
Looking at stats from Crunchbase, VCs have invested over $10.5 billion in early stage investment in the entertainment sector globally over the last decade. Not many of these investments were made in African entertainment companies even with the growth experienced in the sector within the same period. With a preference […]
Launching Your Startup? Legal and Commercial Considerations for Beginners
The global startup ecosystem is growing at fast pace. In Africa, it is faster than ever before. There is ever increasing innovation, and investors are ready to put in good capital to bring the next big innovation into profitability. This is largely influenced by growth in the global information technology […]
AfCFTA and the Prospects for African Tech
Imagine that you run an e-commerce business established in Nigeria. Let’s call the platform Buymore. Buymore records about 100,000 trades daily. In Nigeria, Buymore has about 100 warehouses from where it stores, packages and delivers goods to customers. You decide to establish similar structures in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. You also […]
New License Categorisations for the Nigerian Payments System
On December 10 2020 the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sent a circular dated December 9 2020 to all Payment Service Providers, Banks and Other Financial Institutions on the new License Categorisations for the Nigerian Payment System (the “Circular”). With increased innovation in the Nigerian payments space, the Circular provides clarity for new and existing market participants given significant changes in the payments sub-sector.