Business
Rivers HOS Tasks Workers On Co-operatives
The Rivers State Head of Service, Barrister Samuel LongJohn, has called on civil servants in the state to imbibe the culture of co-operative investment to enhance their economic base. The Head of Service, gave the charge last Wednesday during a paper presented at the send-off ceremony for retirees of The Tide chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
The Head of Service, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Establishment, Training and Pensions Bureau, Office of the Head of Service, Mr Asoelu Gayamos Ogo, said participating in registered co-operative societies with annual turnover will make them access loan facilities with low interest rates to cater for their economic needs.
According to the HOS, cooperative activities do not only provide incentives for small-scale business operation but afford potential retirees additional income that can sustain the family at retirement. Speaking on the topic, “Life Before and After Retirement’ the Head of Service said retirees should not spend their pension and gratuity on faulty investments but channel such resources to medium-scale business.
He emphasised that “planning for retirement should commence immediately one is gainfully employed” and recommended that pre-retirement training or workshop and counseling should be made mandatory in the various MDAs to sensitize retiring officers on the implications of retirement and the need to prepare for it.
The Regional Manager of AIICO Pension Managers of the Contributory Pension Scheme in Rivers State, Mr Godwin Igbanoi who also delivered a lecture at the event, explained that the new pension regime would be beneficial to civil servants and assured that the pension fund would be properly managed for the beneficiaries.
In her presentation, the representative of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Mrs Nkirika Andrew, said the Federal Housing Fund was a realistic policy as beneficiaries would access their funds on retirement. Mrs Andrew, who also spoke on the topic “Civil Servants and Housing Challenges” also pointed out that there was provision for loans for contributors of the fund to take loans to build personal houses, if they can present property with Certificate of Occupancy as collaterals.
In his remark, Ms Kadilo Brown, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, thanked The Tide NUJ chapter and the management of The Tide for honouring the retirees. The Permanent Secretary who was represented by the Director, Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs in the ministry, Mr J. Akara, also urged civil servants to invest wisely by embracing small scale enterprises to secure their life after retirement.
Taneh Beemene
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.
