Banking/ Finance
Joining forces to support local entrepreneurs
Within only three months, the Aspire Small Business Fund a joint effort of GroFin and Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) to create sustainable growth in the Niger Delta Region, has helped Dezionite Interiors to position itself in as a strong brand and growing business.
Dezionite Interiors & General Services located in Port Harcourt is an interior decoration and commercial cleaning business founded by Mercy Ikeji. With only 13 employees and very little equipment, Ikeji contacted GroFin for support. Her desire to grow the business was perfectly in line with the Aspire Fund’s mission to create sustainable employment, economic growth and social development.
Friday Essienenkak, Investment Executivefor GroFin in Nigeria, says “The Aspire Fund, with its anchor investor SPDC, is the perfect solution for entrepreneurs in the region struggling with obtaining finance integrated with business advice and support.” The contribution of small and growing businesses to the overall economic growth of the country is much lower than that of countries with the same level of development as Nigeria. The main constraints associated with the development and growth of this sec
tor are electricity supply, road infrastructure, access to finance, tax administration, security, vocational education and business skill training. “With the mind-set to solve these many issues and improve on the facilities, together with SPDC, we are working to support more entrepreneurs like Ms.Ikeji,” Friday added.
GroFin assisted Ikeji in the creation of her first set of financial statements from sales records from the business’ three years of operation, then trained her on the running the accounting system. She is now comfortable with the financial management of Dezionite and feels confident in her ability to manage the business efficiently. However, she says she still appreciates the monthly visits from GroFin staff and their quick response time to her requests. “GroFin does not only finance you, they also help to organise the business so that it can run efficiently. We have hired more employees and Dezionite’s sales have improved significantly,” the proud business owner states, “The business has achieved over 100% of budgeted sales in January 2015.”
With this investment, Aspire Fund has helped to actualise the dream of a female entrepreneur whilst simultaneously serving its purposes of creating jobs.“I want to thank GroFin for making me a professional business woman. I can compete anywhere in the world!”concluded Ikeji.
Banking/ Finance
Ripple Survey Reveals Appetite for Digital Assets
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.
Banking/ Finance
Forex Trading Signals: Advantages and Usage
Forex trading signals are an automation tool. It represents trading advice based on analysis: in which direction the security price is going to go, to which levels it is most probable to reach as well as at which level it is reasonable to set a trailing stop loss.
Signals for Forex
Forex signals must answer the next questions:
- what asset does it make sense to open a deal at this moment?;
- in what direction will the price go?;
- open a short position or long?;
- what is the target profit level? ;
- at what level should I insure the deal and why?;
- when will the price reach the target level?;
- what is the probability of a positive result?.
A trader determines the volume of a deal him.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Trading Signals
For you, the benefits of signals in your trading are as follows:
- Time to save money.
Sometimes you can’t always keep track of all of the charts at the same time. It happens that you are not necessarily aware enough to make the correct choice. There is sometimes not enough time to go over dozens of data sources to figure out the right choice.
- Practices.
By using the signals of the ISP, the trader can analyze it. “Why did the signal provider pick this particular one and not this one? If I were in his shoes, what would I do?”. The signals are an avenue to learn from the lessons of others.
- Mental effect.
Based on the signals from the providers, to a certain extent, a trader absolves of responsibility for his decisions. Psychologically, in the case of misfortune, it will always be simpler to blame somebody else rather than yourself. In doing so, the mental burden is lessened.
As an alternative, the signals provider can always act as a signals provider itself, thus generating additional revenue. At certain brokers, there is multi-level social trading. The trader copies trades of one or more traders to his account. And he/she makes their account accessible for other traders to copy.
Using Forex Trading Signals
The Forex signals arrive in the form of a message. It necessarily includes the action, type of asset, and level of the stop-and-take profit. It is a big plus if the signal provider provides advice: they add a screenshot of the chart with installed indicators and explain the decision, giving comments on critical levels and the principle of pending orders deployment. To use the recommendations or not is the trader’s choice. The trader also chooses the volume of the transaction and calculates whether the deposit will be able to withstand a drawdown at the selected amount and the stop recommended.
Banking/ Finance
How to deal with unexpected summer costs
Have fun saving money over lockdown, did you?
Sure, the distinct lack of expenditure over the past 15-16 months have been great, but things arestarting to get back to normal.With a return to normality,you’ll probably find your day-to-day spending is steadily rising to where it was before.
The next few months are set to be interesting ones from a budgeting perspective. Many rescheduled social events like weddings, stag and hen dos and other big celebrations that were postponed over the past year and a half are all getting crammed in close together. For those participating, that can rather quickly take monthly spending from next to nothing to an awful lot.
Indeed, summer is a classic time for unexpected costs to rear their head, but with this year especially likely to be a shock to the financial system, what can you do to deal with them?
Reasons your budget isn’t working
If your budget has gone from being watertight to looking shaky recently, these could be some of the reasons:
- You haven’t given it enough thought: Saving money over 2020 and beyond may have happened to you organically. By that we mean you didn’t make any budgetary decisions to generate savings, they just happened. Now that life is back to normal the associated costs come with it, so you might need to put more effort into your budget to stay in the black.
- You’re spending more than you’re earning: Again, this perhaps wasn’t a particular worry over the past year and a half with nothing to do, but that might have stopped youfrom thinking about where and how you’re spending your money. With every wedding, party or event you attend, you’ll be spending a small fortune.Those costs may well suddenly add up to more than your income on the month.
- You’re not budgeting properly for different categories: Now that a lot more recreational spending is back on the table, you may have to address your category spending and apportion more funds to having fun. That spending should come at the cost of another area, though, which is a key thing to figure out to get your budget in shape.
- You aren’t adjusting it: Summertime, and summer 2021 in particular, is always a period of higher spending. With holidays and general fun in the sun to consider, you need to account for that in your budget. Planning your finances to spend more now and save more later will help you to recover from the bigger spending months.
Building an emergency fund
Emergency funds are essential for dealing with unexpected costs, particularly if you’re getting to a point where you’re spending about as much as you earn again. Right now, you might be thinking about how next week’s stag do is going to affect your budget, but what if the boiler breaks down or a pipe suddenly bursts? Sudden, unanticipated but essential repair costs like these can send you into financial chaos if you’re not ready for them.That’s where an emergency fund can help.
You can build an emergency fundby aiming to set aside three to six months’ worth of living expenses. This might seem like a mammoth task, but if you put little bits of money aside gradually – as much as you can afford every month –you’ll build towards it quicker than you might think. Then, when a rainy (or chaotically sunny) day comes, you’ve got that all-important safety valve to keep you financially afloat.
Just remember to assess your finances and ensure you are only putting away an amount of money that will not leave you short.
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