Business
Stakeholder Seeks Support For High Rice Production
The Director of Crystal Gold Mills & Agro-allied in Ekiti State, Mr Adetunji Oluwaseun, has urged the Federal Government to support local rice production with enhanced agro-allied machineries.
Oluwaseun told newsmen in Lagos that the company had the capacity to produce five tons of rice per day or 1,825 tons per annum.
According to him, the company currently produces 2.5 tons of rice per week and given more support of the local rice processors that will meet the nation’s domestic consumption and for export.
“We process 2.5 tons in a week, but with minor changes to our machinery we can process as much as five tons per day.
“That means 10 tons of the raw paddy, what we get will be 5 tons. Now, we are talking about 10kg of about 500 bags.
“We are turning out 5,000 of 1kg per day. If a company is rolling that out, you can imagine the number of people that we will be reaching out to.
“Those are the areas we are looking forward to improve on.
“As I said, we are young, we are hungry, we want to work for people; we want to serve.
“We want people to recognise that there are still young people with the heart to lift up the country from where we are at the moment.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has projected that rice output in Nigeria and Ghana for 2012 would outpace consumption, resulting in an upward revision of five million tonnes in 2013.
FAO also said that the world rice stock-to-use ratio was forecast to rise to 35.5 per cent in 2013 from 33.6 per cent in 2012.
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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.
