Foreign exchange market

The dollar was stabilizing against a basket of other major currencies after hitting a one-year high the previous day, while the British pound rallied. The Dollar index, which compares the American currency to other major currencies, lost some 0.07% to 94.27 points after reaching around 10:30 GMT 94.50 points, at its highest for a year. The euro remained down, however, by 0.07% to 1.1590 dollars, after reaching around 10:30 GMT 1.1568 dollars, the lowest since July 2020.

Cryptocurrencies

Called Crypto Market Index Fund and developed by the Crypto Finance company, the first cryptofund gets the green light from Switzerland. The Swiss market watchdog, Finma, authorized the fund reserved for professional investors. Finma has also set strict rules for this new instrument. It can only invest in "well-established crypto-assets (...) with a sufficiently large trading volume".

While financial institutions and especially central banks have not stopped warning about the dangers of virtual currencies, China is driving the point home with a new statement. The Chinese central bank has declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal. The Chinese central bank promises to eradicate "illegal" activities for both bitcoin and other virtual currencies and to ban the "mining" of cryptocurrencies throughout the country.

Russia-based cryptocurrency exchange Suex has been sanctioned for its role in facilitating ransomware transactions. This sanction from the US Treasury Department is one of the first public and concrete measures taken by the United States against ransomware groups.

Money Market

Two countries of the West African Monetary Union (UMOA) were on the financial market this week. Côte d'Ivoire raised on September 28, 2021, an amount of 33 billion FCFA and Mali collected on September 29, 2021 an amount of 50 billion FCFA (75 million euros). The two countries carried out simultaneous issues of Treasury bonds (ORD) with 5-year and 10-year maturities.

Stock market

The Bceao analyzed the stock market of the union in its monthly note on the economic situation of the member countries of the UEMOA at the end of July 2021. It informs that the main activity indicators of the Regional Stock Exchange (Brvm) have increased compared to June 2021. The Brvm composite and Brvm 10 indices firmed up by 2.9% and 1.2% respectively, standing at 163.4 points and 132.6 points during the month under review. The market capitalization has, in fact, strengthened by 3.8% from one month to another.

Raw materials

Oil prices fell under pressure from a strong dollar and a surprise rise in US inventories last week. At the same time, the price of gas broke new records.

Yves Koné, Director General of the Conseil du Café-Cacao (CCC) announced that the decent income differential of $400 applied on each ton of cocoa since the 2020/2021 season will be maintained, at least for the 2021/2022 campaign. This campaign will begin on October 1st.

The conditions for the cotton marketing campaign have been set by the government's council of ministers. The producer price was established at FCFA 265 per kilo for the 1st choice and FCFA 215 for the 2nd choice. For organic seed cotton, the price is set at FCFA 318 per kilo (1st choice) and FCFA 268 (2nd choice). The transfer prices for inputs were also set, including a 50-kilogram bag of fertilizer, all categories combined, at 12,000 FCFA. Levies for critical functions are increased to FCFA 13 per kilo of seed cotton against FCFA 10 during the 2020/21 campaign.

Companies

The Ivorian Refining Company (Sir) has just increased its storage capacity for petroleum products by around 150,000 m3. The operator aims to acquire the largest quay in the country. The capacity building action was concretized by the signature of an agreement for the acquisition of the wharf and the Puma Energie Côte d'Ivoire depot.

The Beninese e-commerce platform '' ^Fenou industries'' is the big winner of the 4th edition of the Bénédicte Janine Kacou Diagou 2021 Prize for young entrepreneurship. ''Fenou industries'' won the Grand Prix trophy and pocketed a sum of 25 million FCFA. For this competition, Beninese companies remained dominant. The Beninese, Célia Chabi, from KIEL BIEN-ETRE, won the 3 ^rd Prize, Corenthina Esperanza Tikry won the DNA Prize for performance, amounting to 3,000,000 CFA francs.

The firm Grant Thornton has been selected to support Côte d'Ivoire Innovation 20 (#Ci20), a group of innovation companies brought together in associative form, with a view to supporting Ivorian startups. As such, an agreement was signed between the two partners. This agreement signed at the company's premises in Abidjan-Plateau will allow Grant Thornton to support #Ci20 Program start-ups on issues of access to financing, accounting, taxation and good governance.

PALMCI unveiled a historic net result of 31.372 billion FCFA at the end of the first half of 2021. In view of the continuous increase in needs, this growth in PALM CI's results and action will continue. Net income of 31.372 improved by 20.8 billion for the same period in one year. The action of PALM CI which for a time had plunged to 1250 FCFA, closed at 5265 FCFA, its highest level for three years, Thursday evening at the BRVM.

In its process of developing its network in the sub-region, the Ivorian group Cofina has just benefited from major support from the African Solidarity Fund (FSA). The multilateral financial guarantee institution bringing together 14 African member states offers its guarantee to Cofina to raise 5 billion FCFA.

Banks and Insurance

The World Bank has granted financing of 145 billion FCFA to Burkina Faso for the launch of works on the Lomé-Ouagadougou-Niamey corridor. This fund will make it possible to reduce the cost but also the time of transport between Ouagadougou and Lomé or Ouagadougou and Niamey. Also, this infrastructure will facilitate the transit of travelers from Niamey who wish to go to Lomé.

Following the meeting of its board of directors, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) granted financing to Togo to support its electrification projects in remote areas. The financial envelope is 20.1 million dollars, or just over 11 billion FCFA. This fund will be used to finance rural electrification programs through the construction of mini-solar power plants.

Compared to the first half of 2020, the consolidated net income of Oragroup SA recorded a strong increase of 581% for the first half of the year 2021. In a period marked by a slowdown in economic activities, due to Covid, the total balance sheet of the Bank increased by 7% to over CFAF 3,489 billion. These figures were boosted by the good performance in terms of collecting customer resources with more than 331 billion FCFA in additional deposits, an increase of 16%.

After a period of suspension, the World Bank is now ready to help Mali carry out all the analyses, but also to take advantage of the positive experiences. The World Bank had suspended its disbursements to Mali as part of its operations and in accordance with its rules in force. After a thorough assessment of this situation, taking into account the need to be close to the people, men and women, old and young. Both parties considered it urgent to resume this cooperation.

Financial crimes

The German banking regulator Bafin in June imposed a fine of 4.25 million euros on the online bank N26 for flaws in its system to prevent money laundering. The company declared these operations too "late" to the financial regulator, preventing effective control. The online bank claims to have already "fully paid the fine" on July 14.

Fécofa, the Congolese Federation of Football Association, was forced to return nearly one million US dollars acquired fraudulently. This sum was initially allocated to the organization of Tifoco, in other words the International Football Tournament of Congo, designed by Christian Enock Lagnide, former Minister of Communication of Benin.

In Cameroon, 14 banks out of 15 in operation were fined cumulative pecuniary fines of 2.8 billion FCFA in 2020. According to the Ministry of Finance, this sanction comes for violation of the new foreign exchange regulations. The banks concerned are Standard Chartered Bank; Bicec; the Cameroonian Bank for SMEs; UBA Cameroon and UBC Plc; Citibank and Commercial Bank; Société Générale and NFC Bank, to name but a few.

The Falcon Bank trial resulted in a suspended prison sentence required for the former CEO. On Wednesday, at the end of the third day of the trial, a prison sentence of 21 months and 90 days, plus a fine of 2 million francs was required for qualified money laundering.

The latest report from the National Anti-Corruption Commission (CONAC) indicates that corruption caused the State to lose more than 17 billion FCFA in 2020. The report focuses on the state of the fight against corruption in Cameroon for l year 2020. According to this 230-page document, attacks on public wealth and governance did not slow down in 2020”. CONAC estimates the financial damage suffered by the State of Cameroon at more than 17.6 billion FCFA. At the same time, 16,067 denunciations were received by this body.

The Central Office for the Repression of Cybercrime has caught four suspected cybercriminals who specialize in blackmail using videos. The four alleged cybercriminals managed to subtract more than 10 million FCFA from their victims. They succeeded in subtracting funds from many Senegalese, Ivorian and American victims.

A few weeks ago, the young lady Djeneba, well known on social networks where she often plays with her grandmother, was announced dead and a telephone number had been left for financial contributions via orange money. The alleged perpetrator of this act, Sidi Diallo was prosecuted and remanded in custody for theft of digital identity and dissemination of false news.

Fuel fraud is said to be one of the circuits for the financing of terrorism in Burkina Faso. Investigations were carried out in several towns in Burkina Faso in order to put an end to these practices which paralyze the national economy and constitute sources of financing terrorism. These operations led to the arrest of dozens of people and the closure of several service stations and fuel depots. The necessary hearings and arrests are continuing and service stations and fuel depots have been sealed.

Regional growth

On the occasion of the opening ceremony of the symposium on cybersecurity in West Africa, ECOWAS Member States were invited to finance strategies to combat cybercrime. The symposium is held within the framework of the Ocwar-C project. It aims to contribute to the improvement of cybersecurity and to fight against cybercrime.

Despite the negative socio-economic impact of the border closure measure, most Uemoa land borders still remain closed. On Tuesday, September 28, 2021, the virtual interministerial meeting is trying to resolve this situation, which deprives the vast majority of populations of the use of one of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Treaty constituting the Union: that of moving freely between the States. members. Several recommendations relating to health, safety and awareness measures have been formulated and a timetable proposed.

The President of the SME Financing and Development Commission of the General Confederation of Enterprises of Côte d'Ivoire (Cgeci, Ivorian Patronage), Patrick Assi launched the work of the 5th edition of the forum ''La Finance s'engage'' on Monday. , scheduled to be held on November 25, 2021. It is a platform of concrete and structuring solutions aimed at access to financing for SMEs. Placed under the theme "Innovating in the financing of SMEs to accelerate post-Covid-19 recovery", the 5th edition of the forum ''La Finance s'engage'' will be an opportunity for participants to reflect on the improvement of development financing and banking of the economic fabric at the level of SMEs.

Meeting by videoconference, the Ministers of Finance of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) ruled on the repression of stock market violations. Thus, the dice are cast for the establishment of a uniform legislative framework. The sub-regional organization intends to reform the regulatory framework of its financial market. The Council of Finance Ministers of WAEMU member states has decided to provide the area with a uniform legislative framework on stock market offences. As such, a bill was examined during the statutory meeting.