Business

Thai restaurant rides wave of success as customers flock to dine in floodwaters

The rising Thai Chao Phraya river has proved a unique drawcard as footage of diners dodging the wake of passing boats goes viral

Riverside restaurant owner Titiporn Jutimanon feared that the floods afflicting many parts of Thailand could be the end of a business already struggling from the pandemic.

But with the rising tide of the Chao Phraya river this week came an unexpected opportunity.

Instead of closing for the floods, Titiporn’s eatery is making waves in Thailand, staying open for customers who are revelling in shin-deep dining, and the thrill of avoiding the waves created by passing boats.

“Customers absolutely love the waves,” said Titiporn, who runs the Chao Phraya antique cafe in Nonthaburi, north of Bangkok. “What I thought would be a crisis turned into an opportunity.”

Videos have gone viral on social media of customers sitting on drenched chairs, taking mouthfuls of food as long-tail boats buzz by, then moving out of the way as waves hit.

About 30 northern and central provinces have been hit by flooding in recent weeks, raising levels of the famous river that flows through Bangkok.

Titiporn’s Thai business was forced to close during Covid-19 lockdowns, but she’s glad she decided to brave the floods.

“Not only do they love the atmosphere and the barbecue pork and the view of the sunset … the flood became an additional unique factor,” she said. “I feel so lucky that the customers love it, the flood wasn’t a challenge for them to come.”

Customers cheer and laugh as their wooden stools are knocked over by the water that breaches the restaurant.

It holds two sittings each day for diners to enjoy the experience when the water levels are highest.

“It’s a fun challenge – you don’t know if you’ll get washed away somewhere while eating,” joked customer Jetdanai Boonrod, 30.

Business

New Naira Notes Ready For Issuance- CBN

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said the newly redesigned Naira notes are already in banks and ready for issuance.

In a statement on its official twitter handle, the CBN quoted Emefiele to have made the disclosure in Daura, Katsina State, while on a visit to brief the president on the Naira redesign and the recently reintroduced cashless policy.

“The newly redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 banknotes are now in banks and ready for issuance to members of the public,” the statement said.

The CBN governor clarified that the currency redesign and reintroduced cashless policies were not targeted at anybody but were for the good and development of the Nigerian economy, and urged Nigerians to embrace the various electronic channels available for banking and financial service transactions in Nigeria.

Emefiele further said the CBN deferred the cashless policy severally to prepare and deepen Nigeria’s payments system infrastructure.

He, therefore, advised Nigerians to take their old N200, N500, and N1,000 banknotes to the banks before the January 31, 2023 deadline.

Business

NIBSS Says e-Payment Transactions Hit N38.9trn In November

The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) has revealed that transactions worth N38.9 trillion were performed electronically in November through the NIBSS Instant Payment platform (NIP).

This is the highest monthly transaction record on the platform.

Compared with the N34.5 trillion recorded in the preceding month, the November figure also shows a 12.7 per cent increase.

The latest data also shows that the November figure brought the total value of NIP deals in the last 11 months to N345 trillion.

Year on year, the e-payment value increased by 50 per cent compared with the N25.9 trillion recorded in November last year.

The value of the e-payment recorded was a reflection of the increase in the volume of deals within the month. The NIP volume rose to 492.2 million in November, showing a 53.8 per cent increase over the N319.9 million recorded in the same period last year.

The NIP is an account-number-based, online-real-time Inter-Bank payment solution developed in the year 2011 by NIBSS. It is the Nigerian financial industry’s preferred funds transfer platform that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary.

According to NIBSS, over the years, Nigerian banks have exposed NIP through their various channels, that is, internet banking, bank branch, Kiosks, mobile apps, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), POS, ATMs, etc. to their customers.

Business

CBN Insists It Won’t Reverse New Withdrawal Policy

Godwin Emefiele, Governor of the Central Bank, says there would be no reversal on the new cash withdrawal policy adding that the limitations was not intended to hurt anyone.

He disclosed this on Thursday following his visit to President Muhammadu Buhari in Daura, Katsina State.

The National Assembly had earlier faulted the CBN’s unveiling of revised cash withdrawal limits with a maximum of N100,000 for individuals and N500,000 for companies, claiming that it might worsen the current economic situation.

But while reacting to the objections from the National Assembly and the public outcry over the cash withdrawal policy, Emefiele said;

“And we think Nigeria, as the biggest economy in Africa, needs to leapfrog into the cashless economy.

“We cannot continue to allow a situation where over 85 per cent of the cash that is in circulation is outside the bank.

“More and more countries that are embracing digitisation have gone cashless,” he said.

He added that there would be no rigidity on the policy and no reversal, appealing to Nigerians to embrace the new policy.

According to the Governor of the CBN, the new naira notes have already been disbursed to the various commercial banks and expects that the banks would begin distribution to the public.