Business
FIIRO Makes Case For Training Of Young Enterpreneurs
The Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi(FIIRO), on Monday reiterated the need to build the capacity of young entrepreneurs in order to make them self reliant.
The Director General of FIIRO, Mr Oluwadamilohun Osibanjo, stated this on Monday in Lagos at the opening ceremony of Techno-Entrepreneurship Development Training for selected youths from Ubulu-Uku, Delta State.
Elemo said that entrepreneurship development training was the best way to break the poverty cycle in Nigeria.
“The relationship between entrepreneurship, economic growth and poverty reduction is a very significant one.
“For youths to take up position of leadership either in private or public sector, the paradigm shift is on self employment through encouragement and support.
“This encouragement and support will enable them take up challenges of setting up their own enterprises to become the Dangotes and the Otedolas of tomorrow.
“The Federal Government also, through agencies like FIIRO is however tackling the issue of unemployment with all her vigour especially through entrepreneurship with the aim of building youths who are job creators,” she said.
Elemo said that in considering job creation as a priority for national interest, FIIRO had put together this specialised training programme for unemployed youths and women groups.
She said that to ensure poverty was broken; the institute had identified the relevance of over 250 technologies it had developed in all the 774 local government areas of the country.
The FIIRO director general added that the technologies had been documented and published in a book.
“At inception, FIIRO was mandated to accelerate the pace of industrialisation in Nigeria through research and development in utilisation of local raw materials and upgrading of indigenous technologies.
“Over 500,000 techno-entrepreneurs have been trained at the institute since commencement of its full technology transfer training, which helps in solving national socio-economic problems,” she said.
The Tide source reports that the 3-day training centred on five technologies- smoked fish, fruit juice and
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.
