Nigerian commodity exchange Afex has launched a US$100mn fund to improve food security across Africa, with smallholder farmers and warehousing infrastructure firmly in the fund’s sights for financing.

From an airport upgrade in Bulgaria, to a high-speed railway in Serbia, the latest wave of transport projects in Central and Eastern Europe aim to help the region move towards carbon neutrality.

Russia’s Moscow Exchange is primed to receive an influx of participation from Indian investors, after emerging markets broker-dealer Sova Capital partnered with an Indian exchange to provide a bridge between the exchanges.

An agreement could be in sight for the southern African country, which defaulted on its sovereign debt last year. 

The mostly-manual bond sale and trading process has taken another step toward digitisation, with a new company launching to automate primary sales while a secondary credit trading firm has received a US$208mn equity investment to grow its platform. 

Top tier Turkish lender Akbank slashed the margin on its US$700mn-equivalent sustainability-linked loan refinancing, days before the Turkish central bank sent markets reeling by slashing rates by 200bp.

As Europe’s electric vehicle market gathers pace, Slovakian battery startup InoBat is expecting to scale up rapidly over the next few years. 

South Africa’s Absa Bank has signed the first ever Green Loan Principles-adherent loan in Africa, with the International Finance Corporate providing the funding for renewable projects in South Africa.

When Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, became a public company in April, it sent shockwaves through the global financial community. Many are trying to decipher if now, after years of tantalising headlines, digital currencies are about to go mainstream.

Despite a difficult year and a recent ratings downgrade, Mauritius is looking to develop itself as an International Finance Centre as it bounces back from Covid-19. 

The Islamic Development Bank’s largest sustainable Sukuk issuance and its largest every US dollar denominated funding ignites the Islamic finance market across the GCC region where a shift towards Shariah-compliant instruments is accelerating.

A new digital-first bank for the mass-affluent, Monument has hired an impressive list of industry veterans and hopes to corner what it sees as an underserved demographic.