Business
Body Urges SIP’s Implementation, Sustenance
The Buhari Youth Organisation (BYO) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to intensify efforts to fully implement and sustain the Social Investment Programme (SIP) on Enterprise Promotion, to reduce unemployment and poverty.
BYO Coordinator, Lagos State, Mr Waheed Odunuga, made the appeal in an interview with newsmen in Lagos, Monday
Reports that SIP, a special intervention programme of the Federal Government, has four parts, including “Homegrown school feeding Programme” and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
According to him, the government needs to ensure disbursement of funds to expectant beneficiaries and further simplify loan collection and refund.
“This is the very first time people are benefiting from such project without the need of any politician to access loan. All the people need is a formidable registered association.
“The problem is the number of beneficiaries; the targeted beneficiaries is said to be one million people, but as at now, I don’t think the government has done enough.
“To me, the government needs to do more because right now, a lot of applicants are yet to access the loan. It will help to give hope to the hopeless in this recession period.”
Odunuga said that one of BYO’s roles, as an organisation, was to promote government policies, adding that the group had promoted the policy through its chapters across states and local governments.
According to him, efforts should be redoubled to ensure that the project does not fail, as in the last four weeks, money has not been disbursed to expected beneficiaries.
“We told them that within a month, they would get the loan; while some got it within two weeks, many could not get even after a month.
“Some people got the money credited into their accounts, but withdrawing the money becomes difficult, which makes them spend weeks in the banks before getting the money due to monopoly.
“Meanwhile, the government gave two weeks grace to start refund but lots of people, even after two weeks, have not accessed the money, and their accounts would be debited for money not yet collected.
“I think the government needs to do more on turn-around time of banking by removing the monopoly of Sterling Bank and engaging other banks in the programme.”
Odunuga urged the government to strengthen processes of getting the loan back from the beneficiaries, to foster sustenance of the programme, adding that many organisations had not benefited.
Mr Adekunle Aderibigbe, the Secretary of BYO, said: “There is a need to review and simplify the structure and the system of this programme.
“We need to bring more people into the net. In this recession, having access to this fund will go a long way to help the people.”
Aderibigbe said that BYO registered a lot of business-oriented members through its Greenland Multipurpose Cooperative Society to benefit from the scheme under GEEP.
According to him, Mr Olufemi Orioke, the Managing Director of D2RS Finance and Investment Ltd, a major aggregator in implementation of GEEP, has been urging the applicants to be patient with government.
The Tide gathered that in GEEP, the government provides no-interest loan, which range from N10,000 to N100,000 for applicants, and refund is spread over 24 weeks.
Members of accredited market associations, cooperative or trade groups, who have BVN and whose business location can be verified, can apply for the GEEP loan.
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.
