Banker S.A. July 2014 | Page 22

LEGAL Nigeria’s growing middle class has seen a bigger demand for consumer goods Globally trade default rates are less than 0,0003%, almost nonexistent. “I have been at Barclays for a year and I haven’t heard of any losses in Nigeria,” Barrass says. “In my 20 years of trade, I haven’t had one loss in Nigeria and I’ve worked at several big trade banks. It is in the customer’s interest to keep the supplier happy.” He says that, in the last five years, Nigeria has used the global economic crisis to its advantage. The government has restructured the financial system to allow the economy to ride out the crisis easier than others. Now it has a growing middle class, which means a bigger demand for more consumer goods such as mobile phones, tablets and refrigerators. Jonathan Lang, Head of the Bowman Gilfillan Afr X