Business
SON Tasks Firms On ISO 9001
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Tuesday called on yet-to-be certified business organisations to get the ISO 9001 certification as a launch pad to the global market.
The Director-General of SON, Dr Joseph Odumodu, made the call in Lagos at the certification of Marine Platforms Ltd, Apapa.
“The challenges of globalisation, including its attendant ease of movement of goods and services across borders, have made the acquisition of competitive edge inevitable.
“Any company that wants to remain relevant in the market place will have to work hard to satisfy not just current needs but future anticipated needs of the customer,” he said.
Odumodu said that embracing the management approach which drove effective performance would enable Nigerian businesses access global markets in their various areas of operation.
He commended the efforts of the management of the company in getting the NIS ISO 9001: 2008 certification, adding that it was a quest for quality service provision.
According to him, it is also relevant in current competitive global market which must not stop.
He said that the NIS ISO 9001: 2008 Quality Management System framework provided a globally recognised and acceptable solution to the challenges associated with quality management and a key to successful business results.
Odumodu said that the company would be placed on six months surveillance audits to ensure continuous sustenance of the standards it attained which qualified it for the certification.
Odumodusaid the audits would be done for three consecutive years and stressed that the certification could be retained if the company maintained the standard but would be withdrawn if it failed to sustain it.
In his address of welcome, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr Taofik Adegbite, said that the occasion was unique.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
