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17-JUN-2019 :: "What's happening brother' [Bitcoin, USDCNH and WTI] Africa |
Marvin Gaye born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr and who was fatally shot by Marvin Gay Sr., at their house in Los Angeles was a musician, Poet and Seer and one of his most powerful songs was called ''What’s Happening Brother''
Hey baby, what you know good I'm just getting back, but you knew I would War is hell, when will it end? When will people start getting together again? Are things really getting better, like the newspaper said
And that Title ''What’s Happening Brother'' is on a loop in my mind.
So lets start with the enigmatic and mercurial Fugitive and Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee, who always seems to pop up in my Feed like an acid Trip whenever Bitcoin is doing its Parabola imitation.
''But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice -guessed and refused to believe -that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.’’
Bitcoin is trading at Fresh Highs of $9,270.00 and aside from Beyond Meat and Zoom has posted the best returns in 2019 and is in triple digit % gain territory.
Paul Virilio captured the essence of our c21st Zeitgeist with this quote
'''Wealth is the hidden side of speed and speed the hidden side of wealth'
Bitcoin, Beyond Meat and Zoom is Virilio's quote expressed in market terms. Bitcoin is something like 50% below the All Time Highs. I recommended Bitcoin this year at $5,350.00. I am recommending Bitcoin again on a supreme conviction basis. A great deal of the Price surge is correlated to Chinese Flight Capital, in my opinion.
Hong Kong is savouring a quite momentous Geopolitical Victory and seriously countertrend in point of fact. The Supreme and ''Paramount Leader'' made his first [that I can recall] volte-face. The Carrie Lam Administration has withdrawn the Extradition Law indefinitely. Make no mistake the Decider in this matter is Xi who has moved with despatch. Essentially, he understood Hong Kong could not be ''Xinjiang-ed'' Furthermore, being a ''Paramount Leader'' is a double-edged Sword
“This is all on Xi’s shoulders,” said Trey McArver, co-founder of Beijing-based research firm Trivium China. [Bloomberg] “Xi has personally said that he would handle relations with the United States and at this point he has failed. Those relations are spiraling out of control.” [Bloomberg]
The Periphery is a Boil that will not be lanced. Official Economic data out of China is beginning to roll over with Industrial production at 2002 lows. I would venture that if President Trump could dial down the theatrics, it would be very clear that his Signature Tariff Policy [coercive, sanction, currency etc warfare] is inflicting a lot more pain than is being inflicted on it. President Xi spent his 66th birthday being fed Russian ice-cream by his Bestie Vladimir in Dushanbe and who would not because Ice-Cream is comfort food after all. I think one touch 7.50 USD CNH Calls are worthy of a keen look.
Now another Big Happening is the Crude Oil Market. Here Two powerful Gale Force Winds are at work. The IEA has now twice downshifted Demand and what is clear is we are facing significant demand destruction and it is this Penny dropping which took down Oil more than 20% from its 2019 Highs and we are now at 5 month lows. However, what is not clear yet is the degree of Supply destruction we are facing. One third of all oil traded by sea, which amounts to 20% of oil traded worldwide, passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Insurance rates demanded for Tankers operating in the area are up to 20 times higher [@Chigrl].
@ejmalrai reports Ali Akbar Velayati saying that “if Iran can’t export oil through the Persian Gulf, no-one in the Middle East will be able do this” and “expects further attacks in the future, given the US decision to stop the flow of oil by all means at all costs. Thus, oil will stop being delivered to the world if Iran can’t export its two million barrels per day”.
The overwhelming confidence that Iran is displaying, both in rhetoric and action, is astounding says Stratfor.
All the global markets have become liquidity Traps. The Oil Markets trade 24 hours but in the early hours is when Gremlin Wizards and Djinns stalk the Exchanges like the FX Markets. Therefore, if this Khamenei Trump bout Fest kicks off then we could very well see a Price Spike. One Touch is the Way to go.
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I felt lost. The sand crushed my mouth, but I cried out: I cannot be killed by sand that I dream -nor is there any such thing as a dream within a dream. Africa |
“One day or one night—between my days and nights, what difference can there be?—I dreamed that there was a grain of sand on the floor of my cell. Unconcerned, I went back to sleep; I dreamed that I woke up and there were two grains of sand. Again I slept; I dreamed that now there were three. Thus the grains of sand multiplied, little by little, until they filled the cell and I was dying beneath that hemisphere of sand. I realized that I was dreaming; with a vast effort I woke myself. But waking up was useless—I was suffocated by the countless sand. Someone said to me:
You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of the grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened.
I felt lost. The sand crushed my mouth, but I cried out: I cannot be killed by sand that I dream —nor is there any such thing as a dream within a dream.
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Iranians fired missile at US drone prior to tanker attack, US official says @CNNPolitics Law & Politics |
In the hours before the attack on the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, the Iranians spotted a US drone flying overhead and launched a surface-to-air missile at the unmanned aircraft, a US official told CNN. The missile missed the drone and fell into the water, the official said. Prior to taking fire, the American MQ-9 Reaper drone observed Iranian vessels closing in on the tankers, the official added, though the source did not say whether the unmanned aircraft saw the boats conducting an actual attack. Still, it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack. The same official also said in the days prior to the attack, a US Reaper drone was shot down in the Red Sea by what is believed to be an Iranian missile fired by Houthi rebels.
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Iran has gone on the offensive, laying the ground for a possible war neither side really wants. @RevaGoujon @Stratfor Law & Politics |
Two brazen attacks near the Strait of Hormuz within a single month suggest that Iran will accept the cost of a military conflict with the United States. Tehran may be trying to incite Washington to conduct a limited military strike to rally domestic support for the Islamic republic while it's still in a position of relative strength. As the White House weighs its response, the United States could first try to assemble a coalition of naval escorts in the name of defending freedom of navigation. Amid Iran's bravado, there is no guarantee that provocations aimed at initiating a limited war — along with many other triggers for military action — will not spiral into a much more devastating armed engagement.
The White House calculated that taking the fast-and-furious approach to sanctions against Iran would be more likely to force a weakened — and chastened — Tehran to come running back to the negotiating table. But U.S. President Donald Trump has fundamentally misread the leadership in Tehran.
Iran, while not yet at the point of suffering triple-digit inflation or widespread unrest from crippling sanctions, has apparently decided to preemptively push back against the White House, knowing that its retaliatory moves will run the very real risk of inviting a limited military strike. If such a strike was always in the cards anyway, Tehran may be thinking it's better to weather a few American salvos now and rally nationalistic support around the regime while it can still claim a relative position of strength. Moreover, given that Iran is exporting oil at reduced amounts and at steep discounts, the specter of another tanker war helps to buttress oil prices against the bearish force of slowing global consumer demand.
The overwhelming confidence that Iran is displaying, both in rhetoric and action, is astounding.
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Tehran has held firm in its tussles with @realDonaldTrump @ObserverUK Law & Politics |
For much of this year, two beliefs have held firm in the halls of power in Iran: US attempts to strangle its economy cannot be tolerated and Donald Trump has no intention of going to war. Tehran’s access to oil markets has been crippled by a sanctions regime that has proven more targeted and comprehensive than ever before. At the same time, enemies across the Gulf are selling oil to its former customers. To leave either unaddressed would be to signal weakness, say regional officials familiar with Iranian leadership. The shifting views are likely to further support a view in Iran that Trump is far from the shrewd negotiator he seems – to himself – to be. More carpet-seller than Kissinger, he seems unaware of Iran’s leverage, in regard to its dormant nuclear programme, ignorant of its culture and unsure on his feet as tensions between both sides escalate. There is next to zero chance of a Kim Jong-un style showboating summit between Trump and Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and every chance that even in the highly unlikely event such a meeting did take place he would walk away with less than he did in Singapore. While undoubtedly under stress from sanctions, Tehran still has cards to play, and leaders who know how to hold a hand. Its gamble is that Trump doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, or whose rules he’s playing by.
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Sayyed Ali Khamenei, rejected the message and any dialogue with the US President and told his guest that he considers Trump unworthy to "to exchange a message with".by @ejmalrai Law & Politics |
Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo conveyed a message from US President Donald Trump to the Iranian leadership, asking the release of 5 US prisoners and inviting Iran to sit around a negotiation table, adding “he [Donald Trump] would be ready to suspend all sanctions only during the negotiations”. No guarantee was offered to freeze or revoke the sanctions. Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the revolution, rejected the message and any dialogue with the US President and told his guest that he considers Trump unworthy to “to exchange a message with”.
Ali Akbar Velayati, namely that “if Iran can’t export oil through the Persian Gulf, no-one in the Middle East will be able do this”. The source “expects further attacks in the future, given the US decision to stop the flow of oil by all means at all costs. Thus, oil will stop being delivered to the world if Iran can’t export its two million barrels per day”.
More attacks and no insurance company will agree to cover any oil tanker navigating in Gulf waters, putting Iran and other oil-exporters at the same level. Moreover, let us see what justifications Trump and Europe will offer their people when the price of oil becomes unaffordable”, said the source.
“Tensions in the Gulf can be eased only when sanctions are lifted on Iran. Otherwise, more objectives may be targeted and the level of tension will gradually increase. The US is selling weapons which are inadequate to protect oil tankers or to protect oil pipelines delivering oil to harbours. If Iran is in pain, the rest of the world will suffer equally,” said the source.
“The selling of oil was compared to a horde of wolves hunting together: when one is unable to hunt, others replace him. When Iran was under sanctions unable to sell its crude oil production daily, Saudi Arabia and Russia replaced Iran and increased their production and delivery. This is why Sayyed Ali Khamenei told the Iranian leadership to no longer consider any country as a durable friend and ally.”
“President Trump is betting on maintaining the status-quo. This doesn’t suit Iran, because its economy will suffer dearly. Binding the deep economic wound and holding on until Trump ends his first mandate is playing into Trump’s hand and this is not going to happen. The tension in the Gulf was generated when Trump decided to pull out of the nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA). Let him pay the price now. If Iran cannot export its crude oil it means the country must be ready for war”, continue the source.
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The lira is in retreat again after already depreciating about 10% this year against the dollar, the worst performer in emerging markets after the Argentine peso. @business Emerging Markets |
The lira is in retreat again after already depreciating about 10% this year against the dollar, the worst performer in emerging markets after the Argentine peso. Investors anticipate the Turkish currency will remain among the world’s most unstable, with its three-month implied volatility the highest globally. The prospects for the lira could become even more dire if Turkey doesn’t move off a collision course with the U.S. over its purchase of a Russian missile system, which has strained the ties between the NATO allies and further spooked investors. The U.S. has threatened to impose sanctions on Turkey over the deal. “The sanctions threats, the letter mess, the heavy burden of the exchange rate and interest rates have reached a highly dangerous level,” Bahceli said. “We are at a time where countries have started to communicate not by means of diplomacy but via power struggles.”
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US "Weaponizing" Dollar And Turkey Will Not Be Last to Be Targeted - Economist: via @SputnikInt Emerging Markets |
''President Erdogan's voodoo economics worked in the time of the golden flood of liquidity but under today's less benign conditions no-one except die-hard Erdogan-supporting Turkish nationalists is prepared to throw good money after money gone bad on the basis of Erdogan's hocus pocus monetary policy,"
It is not possible for Erdogan to bend the arc of monetary policy making to his will and if he continues down this path, the Turkish economy will continue to crater''
''Erdogan is a mercurial politician but he reminds me of a man walking around a tinderbox with a match in his hand. He is endangering himself and his legacy is in peril," Mr. Satchu told Sputnik.
Frontier Markets
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Africa sees increase in foreign investment, bucking global trend @Reuters Africa |
* FDI inflows to sub-Saharan Africa grew 13% in 2018 * South Africa was top performer; Nigeria suffered * 2019 FDI seen bolstered by new U.S. law, AfCFTA ratification
Foreign investment in sub-Saharan Africa rose 13% last year to $32 billion, bucking a global downward trend and reversing two years of decline, according to a United Nations report. Development of new mining and oil projects, a new U.S. development-finance institution and the ratification of an agreement to create a continent-wide free-trade area could further boost foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2019, it said. Africa stands in sharp contrast to developed economies, which saw FDI inflows plunge 27% to their lowest level since 2004, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development wrote in its “World Investment Report”. Some African countries fared better than others, however. The Southern Africa region performed the best, taking in FDI of nearly $4.2 billion, up from -$925 million in 2017. Foreign investment in South Africa more than doubled to $5.3 billion. President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took office last year pledging to revive the economy, is seeking to attract $100 billion in FDI to Africa’s most developed economy by 2023. Though much of the South African jump came from intracompany loans, new investments included a $750 million Beijing Automotive Group plant and a $186 million wind farm being built by the Irish company Mainstream Renewable Energy. By contrast, inward FDI to Nigeria, a major oil producer, plunged 43% to $2 billion. Investors were put off by a dispute between the government and South African telecom giant MTN over repatriated profits. Banks HSBC and UBS both closed representative offices there in 2018. That left Ghana, which is in the midst of an oil and gas boom and saw inflows of $3 billion, as West Africa’s leading destination for foreign investment. Italy’s Eni Group was behind Ghana’s largest greenfield investment project. Ethiopia remained East Africa’s top recipient of FDI at $3.3 billion, despite an 18% drop compared with the year before. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania all saw increases in FDI inflows. Foreign investment in Uganda jumped 67% to a record $1.3 billion, boosted by the oil and gas development of a consortium that includes France’s Total, CNOOC of China and London-listed Tullow Oil. The creation of the U.S. International Development Finance Corp could help support FDI inflows this year. A replacement for the Overseas Private Investment Corp, it will be have a budget of $60 billion and a mandate to make equity investments. “The ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement could also have a positive effect on FDI, especially in the manufacturing and services sectors,” the report said. The AfCFTA aims to eliminate tariffs between member states, creating a market of 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of more than $2.2 trillion.
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Malian ruler named Abu Bakr II was said to have equipped an expedition involving two hundred ships that attempted to discover "the furthest limit of the Atlantic Ocean." @nybooks @hofrench Africa |
The expedition failed to return save for one vessel, whose survivor claimed that “there appeared in the open sea [as it were] a river with a powerful current…. The [other] ships went on ahead but when they reached that place they did not return and no more was seen of them.” Some modern historians (Michael Gomez, Toby Green, and John Thornton, among others) have interpreted this to mean that the Malian ships were caught in the Atlantic Ocean’s Canary Current, which sweeps everything in its path westward at about the same latitude as Mali.
Abu Bakr II supposedly responded not by abandoning his dreams of exploration but by equipping a new and far larger expedition, this time involving two thousand ships and with himself in command. That was the last that was seen of him. We know of this story only because when Abu Bakr’s successor, Mansa Musa, was staying in Cairo in 1324–1325 on his pilgrimage to Mecca, the secretary of the chancery of the Mamluk Dynasty asked him how he had come to power and recorded his reply. There are no other traces of Abu Bakr’s attempt.
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"Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time," @nybooks @hofrench Africa |
The catalog makes the point, as does much recent writing on medieval Africa, that the Sahara has long been miscast as a barrier separating a notional black Africa from an equally notional white or Arab one. In reality, it argues, the desert has always been not just permeable but heavily trafficked, much like the ocean, with trade as well as religious and cultural influences traveling back and forth, and with world-shaping effects.
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Sudan Ousted a Brutal Dictator. His Successor Was His Enforcer. @nytimes Africa |
Once a camel trader who led a militia accused of genocidal violence in Darfur, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan now sits at the pinnacle of power in Sudan, overlooking the scorched streets from his wood-paneled office high up in the military’s towering headquarters.
Hemeti speaks: "A lanky man with a primary school education, four wives and no formal military training, he is enjoying the trappings of his new position". Days after massacre, Hemeti defends his troops:“Janjaweed means a bandit who robs you on the road. It’s just propaganda from the opposition”
Conclusions
"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
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The hidden worth of the global African diaspora @AfricaAtLSE Africa |
On 5 November 2018, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed Billene Seyoum as the Press Secretary of the PM’s Office. We all celebrated, because somehow there appeared a consensus on her merit. Two days later, somebody ‘disclosed’ on social media that she held a Canadian passport, and the tone changed completely. The debate escalated. It was as if the PM had let a stranger in to the annals of Ethiopia’s political secrets. Diaspora-ness is a tricky state of being. In their adopted homes, diasporas are referred to as ‘immigrants’, a term that often elicits a sense of unwelcomeness. In their original homes they are thought of as ‘runaways’ who want the best of both worlds – the first to trace their roots when it’s convenient and exotic but also the first to pack and leave when the going gets tough. But these same diasporas, by some miracle, are expected to make a contribution both in their adopted and original homes. Hypocrisy arises because no matter how much their adopted homes look down on them, for instance, they do not waive their taxes. And even when they are referred to as ’them’ in the third person, the original homes do not refuse their remittances. By their adopted and original ‘homes’ alike, diasporas are treated as resources that should be carefully tapped rather than embraced. They are resources, of course. Remittance flows to many countries in the global South are larger than the official development assistance received from the West and more stable than private capital flows. And in some countries, even the ones that have respectable economies, the contribution of remittances to GDP is growing. During the period from 2004 to 2017, it grew from 0.93% to 7.47% in Ghana, from 12.31% to 18.70% in Liberia, from 2.59% to 5.85% in Nigeria, from 7.88% to 13.67% in Senegal and in Egypt from 4.24% to 10.06%. In most African countries, the diaspora’s economic contribution is rarely spoken of openly, because most leaders do not want to concede on them financial dependence. Many governments actually either underreport the contribution of the remittances to GDP or ‘fail’ to report it for fear of the figure empowering diasporas to influence local politics. Even in countries such as Somalia, where a quarter of GDP comes from remittances, this barely figures in any reports. But while diasporas may be resources, it is problematic to look at them as just that – resources – and nothing more. Why do we boil down their worth to the few hundred dollars they send to their families every month? They are and they can be so much more, especially when diasporas have achieved great things for the human race. Why can’t their potential gained from exposure, experiences and education overseas be brought back home encouragingly and be deployed for the betterment of their homelands, so that the next generation of Africans and the generations after them will not have to leave home to find better education elsewhere? Coming from Ethiopia, I can speak of so many Ethiopians who have influenced the world beyond their adopted or original borders. I can speak of the late Ethiopian space scientist, Kitaw Ejigu, who was NASA’s Chief of Spacecraft and Satellite Systems. I can speak of the Ethiopian agricultural scientist at Purdue University, Gebisa Ejeta, who developed Africa’s first commercial hybrid variety of sorghum tolerant to drought and parasitic weed. I can speak of Noah Samara, who founded the world’s first satellite radio network which aims to reach and empower the entire global South with educational and informational content. I can speak of Professor Tilahun Yilma of the University of California, who developed a genetically-engineered vaccine for the fatal cattle disease rinderpest, and who invented the inexpensive rapid testing kit for the same disease. I can go on and on, and I am sure each African national can name similarly dazzling diasporas originating from their respective countries. Why, then, do we still measure our diaspora’s worth by their hand downs when it is their brains that could create infinitely more value back home? Is it the case of the prophet being ‘not accepted in his hometown’? To me, the diaspora might just be the card Africa has hidden under her sleeve for far too long. CNN once called the African diaspora the continent’s ‘secret weapon’ and this, I think, is not hyperbole. The African Union Commission defines the African diaspora as ‘peoples of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality … who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union’. The Commission considers the diaspora the continent’s ‘sixth region’ after the East, West, North, Central region and South. That inclusive definition and characterisation of the African diaspora, estimated at about 170 million, as another organ of the continent’s body is a good beginning to recognising and unleashing their full potential. Second-guessing the disapora’s loyalty to the motherland, as we did of Billene Seyoum in Ethiopia, is no means to win their hearts back home.
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Revolutionary cells Mobile money comes to Nigeria @TheEconomist Africa |
The shared cars that shuttle between Abuja and Kaduna, two Nigerian cities, carry more than passengers. For a fee they will also carry cash, says Odedele Olusanmi, a driver. On a typical journey he takes five packages, each holding around 20,000 naira ($55). Only two-fifths of Nigerians have bank accounts, which is why some send money this way. Yet an alternative could already be in their pockets.
In the past decade a mobile-money revolution has swept through much of Africa, enabling the unbanked to make transfers, pay bills and save. Half of the world’s 866m mobile-money accounts are in Africa, not counting services which need users to belong to a bank. But not many are in Nigeria, its largest economy and most populous country, with 200m people, where mobile money was used for transactions worth just 1.4% of gdp last year (compared with 44% in Kenya). Four-fifths of Nigerians have never heard of it.
Until recently, the Nigerian central bank did not allow telecoms firms to offer financial services, except as the junior partners of conventional banks. Elsewhere mobile operators had been in the vanguard. A mobile-money system needs agents to take in and give out cash—boots on the ground, not just bytes in the pocket. In the early stages telecoms firms, which sell phone credit in the remotest villages, can run these operations at costs 40% below those of banks, according to consultants at McKinsey.
So late last year the Nigerian central bank brought in new rules that will allow telecoms firms, supermarkets, courier companies and others to become “payment-service banks”, with a licence to take deposits, make payments and issue debit cards. A quarter of their service points must be in rural areas. Among the applicants is mtn Nigeria, the local unit of Africa’s largest telecoms firm. Designing and marketing its own service is “completely different” from working with a bank, says Usoro Usoro, its head of mobile financial services. He argues that mtn can draw on its experience with mobile money elsewhere and has the “know-how to build and manage a distribution network”. Globacom, a rival, plans to launch its own mobile-money service. Airtel, an Indian firm, is interested.
But success is not guaranteed, warns Yinka David-West of Lagos Business School. In east Africa, mobile money was initially touted as a way for urban workers to send money to relatives in villages. That may have less appeal in Nigeria, where more people live in cities and new arrivals often come with their families. And the rules restrict the products firms can offer: for example, they cannot lend.
Competition comes from specialist mobile-money operators, which are neither banks nor telecoms firms. They were permitted under the old rules, but faced obstacles to growth: until 2015, for example, unbanked mobile-money users could send no more than 3,000 naira at a time. Paga, a PayPal-like startup, has recruited 20,000 agents and reached 12m users (still a small fraction of a vast market). Tayo Oviosu, its founder, argues that the advantages of telecoms firms have been exaggerated. Many airtime sellers are not set up to handle large transactions, he says, so the likes of mtn have to build a new network of agents.
The advent of mobile money was a shock for east Africa’s fusty financiers. In Nigeria it is less of a threat. Bankers will not mind if telecoms firms scoop up the poor, rural clients whom they have long ignored. And their existing customers can already use their bank accounts to carry out transactions through apps or by typing short codes into a phone. Nigeria will have insurgents. But the incumbents will survive.
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