Business
Afribank Former Chairman Wants Corruption Charges Quashed
A former Chairman of Afribank Plc, Osa Osunde, last Tuesday prayed a Federal High Court in Lagos to quash charges of corruption preferred against him and seven others.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Osunde and the others over the alleged abuse of the office, banking malpractice and money laundering to the tune of N55 billion.
The others include a former Managing Director of the bank, Sebastian Adigwe.
They were accused to have conspired and granted loans without adequate collateral.
The EFCC also charged them with failure to take reasonable steps to ensure that the account books of Afribank, now Mainstream Bank, as at May 31, 2009 gave a true picture as required by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
At the resumed hearing of the case on Tuesday, Osunde’s counsel, Mr Peter Ode, told the court that his client was not linked with the charge.
He said that his client was a non-executive director of the bank and was not connected with the day-to-day running of the bank.
Ode said that Osunde, should, therefore, not be held liable for anything that went wrong with the bank’s daily activity.
“It is clear from the processes filed by the prosecution that my client was wrongly lumped as an executive manager of the bank,’’ he said
He prayed the court to discountenance the additional proof of evidence filed by the prosecution on the grounds that it was filed after the accused persons’ pleas were taken.
“We are saying that the additional proof of evidence is incompetent, abuse of court processes and should be struck out,’’ he submitted.
However, the prosecution counsel, Dr Chukwuma Ekwenme, said that the prosecution did not have to bring all materials that would form the proof of evidence at the time of filing the charge.
Justice John Tsoho adjourned the case till April 17 for hearing in all pending applications
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.
