Business
Oil Marketers, PEFMB Agree On Payment
Major oil marketers have reached an agreement with the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (Management) Board (PEFMB) to henceforth, deduct from source their indebtedness to the board.
The major marketers collectively owed PEFMB about N30 billion, an amount that has remained outstanding since 2006.
Both parties met in Abuja at the weekend for several hours to discuss the outstanding payments resulting from petroleum products bridging claims. It was learnt that the marketers ought to have paid the outstanding claims to the board before drawing from the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF). The PSF is being managed by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to pay for imported products subsidy.
To qualify to benefit from the PSF, a marketer would have secured an import licence from Federal Government and appropriate clearance from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as well as pay the bridging claims to PEFMB.
The Federal Government has suspended the PSF operation to make way for the deregulation of the downstream sector.
However, according to our source, many marketers are reluctant to make their contributions to PEFMB, preferring some short cuts.
Some would rather prefer to arm-twist the PPPRA to get their payments, side-tracking the PEFMB. It was against this background and to resolve the outstanding matters between them, that representatives of the major marketers: Oando, Total, Chevron, AP, Conoil and Mobil, met with the management of PEFMB.
Mr Goddy Nnadi, the Head of Public Affairs and Government Relations in PEFMB, confirmed the meeting in an interview last Friday.
He said it was one of the windows to reach a consensus on the grey areas and get the marketers to settle their debts now and in the future. “It was in the bid to recover this money that PEFMB wrote the federal government for permission to take the measures.
It was becoming more difficult for us to get the marketer to pay in spite of many appeals.
“The office had tried in the past to secure the services of law firms to get the debtors to pay. This is the last resort before the matter could be taken to the EFCC”, Nnadi said.
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.