China intends to extend renminbi loans to other Brics nations, in another step towards the internationalisation of its currency, the Financial Times reported. The China Development Bank will sign a memorandum of understanding in New Delhi with its Brazilian, Russian, Indian and South African counterparts on March 29, say people familiar with their talks. Under the agreement CDB, which lends mainly in dollars overseas, will make renminbi loans available, while the other Brics nations’ development banks will also extend loans denominated in their respective currencies.

Commercial banks that borrow from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK’s) emergency lending window more than twice in a week will be investigated, Business Daily Africa reported. In a circular elaborating on the new market-based operations, CBK said banks using the overnight window will also be charged a high penalty above the Central Bank Rate (CBR) that currently stands at 16.5 per cent. “Those banks utilising the CBK Overnight Window will be charged the CBR plus a high penalty.

Uchumi Supermarkets Ltd., which resumed trading in May after a five-year suspension, advanced for the first day in as sell-offs by long-time shareholders slowed down, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. “We have seen the tail-end of the selling pressure of the people who are selling after holding the stock for so long,” Aly-Khan Satchu, chief executive officer of Rich Management, a Nairobi-based investment adviser to high-net-worth individuals, said in a phone interview today.

Kenyans who were attracted to bank loans by last year’s low interest rates are headed for tough times as the lenders raise the cost of money to protect their margins against inflation and exchange rate turbulence, Business Daily Africa reported. The reality of the high cost of debt has been emerging in the past couple of weeks in which successive lenders have raised interest rates citing increased costs of funds from depositors. The rise in interest rates started last week when I&M Bank increased its base lending rate by 2.25 percentage points to 15.75 per cent.

Troubled insurer Blue Shield was on Friday placed under statutory management by the Insurance Regulatory Authority for inability to honour claims. IRA commissioner Sammy Makove further barred the insurer from conducting any new business and advised existing policy holders to use other underwriters, allAfrica.com reported. IRA attributed the firms woes to its involvement in the public service vehicles (PSV) insurance business which has been beset by soaring claims, fraud and litigation.

Nigeria's state asset management company (AMCON) said it expects five of the nine banks that were bailed out for $4 billion to call extraordinary general meetings by Sept. 30, so shareholders can vote on recapitalisation deals signed with investors. AMCON Chief Executive, Mustapha Chike-Obi, told Reuters on Tuesday he expected shareholders to accept the deals. If they did not, regulators would need to explore all options to protect depositors, employees and the financial markets.

Nigeria's recently nationalised Mainstreet Bank, formerly Afribank, said on Tuesday it had paid the central bank back the 50 billion naira ($327 million) in intervention funding given in a 2009 bailout and the lender was now fully recapitalised, Reuters reported. The Nigerian central bank revoked the licences of Afribank, Spring Bank and Bank PHB on Friday because it said they did not show the necessary capacity to recapitalize following a $4 billion bailout of nine lenders in 2009.

The banking stock index on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Monday fell by the highest margin this year as investors offloaded their shares, Punch reported. The NSE Banking Index, which measures the performance of the top 10 most capitalised stocks in the sub-sector, fell by 3.7 per cent at the close of trading, the highest percentage fall in eleven months. Analysts have linked the fall to a panic induced by last Friday’s nationalisation of three banks – BankPHB, Afribank and Spring Bank – by the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria on Saturday said it would inject N678.5bn into the three nationalised banks, whose licences were revoked on Friday by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Punch reported. AMCON said at a press conference in Lagos that by Monday, it would take over Spring Bank Plc, Afribank Plc and Bank PHB Plc and recapitalise them to the tune of N110.5bn, N285bn and N283bn respectively through the issuance of bonds in order to raise their capital adequacy ratio to 15 per cent.

Stockbrokers have reserved large portions of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) for collapsed rivals in a move that could see them rake in billions of shillings when the bourse is sold to the public early next year, Business Daily Africa reported. A legal document drafted by the brokers’ advisers shows that each of the NSE’s 21 intermediaries – whether operational, in receivership or collapsed – has been allocated one million shares worth millions of shillings.