MC&A Digest team members are not bankers, and we respect professionals so much, we do speak other people’s language. One of the beautiful things about professionalism is the peculiarity of language. The lawyers would even pride themselves as “learned colleagues” in addition. From medicine, through farming, insurance and even advertising as it is traditionally referred, all pride their expertise on the peculiarity of their language. Whether one likes it or not, these peculiar posturing expressed in exclusive ‘lingo’ commands some respect from non-members of any such profession.
So, no matter how vast one tends to be outside his or her profession or trade, code-switching across professions cannot be so well done to obliterate exclusivity. So, we respect professionalism! It is enviable to be a professional.
Professionalism is derived from training, sacrifice, commitment, investment and discipline. For instance, it takes the doctor so many years of academic training and discipline to acquire the knowledge and skills to qualify for certification, and then to practice. It really takes so much to be a professional.
However, we ask questions on this page, to that extent, we sometimes take appreciative look at contributions of endeavours to societal growth and development by the time we warehouse enough information to do so. As brands management consultants, we set our eyes on the bottom-line for brands and consumers at the market place. We are therefore constantly challenged to appreciate professionals’ relevance and impact on the society, no matter the profession,.we ask questions.
The advent of the ‘new bank brands’ (and then PROVIDUS) – Mainstreet Bank, Enterprise Bank and Keystone Bank – threw up some excitements. As brands managers, the names came across as products of hurried thinking. By the way, brand names mean so much to us, because they give insight into their under-bellies. This is the first time names of such as these will hit my senses as names of banks, but I am almost certain these are names directly copied from existing brands in far-away developed markets because our Bank Brand Architectects don’t like worrying to be original. If you go through most of the bank names in Nigeria, you will discover that most of them just picked names of banks in faraway places to come worry us here. Perhaps one is being old-school here, but psychologically, most of the bank brands leave one with the impression that they are jokers by their names.
Banks and banking connect at a very high level of importance and relevance as micro and macro-economic growth agents. For that reason, one would expect some level of seriousness from their composition to their customer service orientation. The traditionalist and oldies such as UBA, Union, First, etc, will come rather more like it in that case. The pre-80s banking years were driven by serious sounding brand names as mentioned above, and the ACBs and Barclays of yore. Such names elicited seriousness, both in perception and customer engagement.
Characteristic of those banking years, banking services were delivered in a more traditional manner than present day experience. They carried out their traditional roles with plenty of credibility. Compared to what obtains today, banking services of old could be termed crude and devoid of innovative IT platforms/infrastructures, but they were also devoid of no ‘short-cuts’. No round-tripping, no toxic assets, no counter-party risk and exchange rate risks, and over-priced lines of credit; we once heard of Global Banking! Na wa.
Architects of Nigeria’s Financial System Strategy 2020 could have been very purposeful in their efforts to put that policy document together, but the rationale is difficult to find (we shall come to that later). As it is, Nigerians are asking salient questions bothering on the relevance of our banks and indeed the banking institutions in our nation-building effort. Without delving into the professional jargons, banks are supposed to be the drivers of economic growth of any nation. In organised societies, banks power the entire financial system because they control up to 90 per cent of the system’s total assets
How have our banks fared over the years?
In a document presented by Tony Elumelu at African Summit of The Corporate Council on Africa: Evolution and New Opportunities (Baltimore USA, 2005), he established the following:
The years 1970/80s in Nigeria were dominated by Union Bank, First Bank and United Bank for Africa
The banking industry in Nigeria was deregulated in 1986 (and the number of banks rose to 100!)
These new banks were characterised by weak capitalisation and poor management quality
The financial environment suffered under weak regulatory supervision
The new banks collapsed
In that same document, Elumelu posited some panacea to the ugly trend at that time. Among them are the creation of mortgage loans and the development of mortgage-backed securities market, which, according to him at that time, had estimated market potentials in excess of N18 trillion
Now, let us stop to imagine that growth opportunity.
Can you imagine by how much the mortgage market would have impacted the entire economy if it were taken advantage of? To the ordinary Nigerian, this would have translated to adequate housing/accommodation. It would have in turn generated long-term investment and reward opportunities for investors. Allied services that would have evolved from that gesture would have propelled employment opportunities, and a whole lot of multiplier effect on the nation’s economy.
In that same document, the author proposed creating a market for consumer finance and micro-credit. To him, the country’s huge population and the then growing middle class presented a viable opportunity for growing that initiative. But the question remains, as it has always been, what have the banks been doing to support economic growth in Nigeria?
Following the industry deregulation, all sorts of unprofessional practices were brought to bear in banking, no doubt. In the name of innovative banking, the traditional roles were so quickly replaced with all kinds of self-serving financial services that feasted on ordinary Nigerians (some people will cover all that up in the goodness of Financial Inclusion). Banks became traders, property developers and dealers in foreign currency. The situation grew so bad to accommodate hire- purchase financing for very short time gains. Depositors’ funds became tools in the hands of banks to further impoverish the people. Banks started buying and selling television sets, fridge, gas and electric cookers for quick marginal earnings.
Rather than finance mortgages, banks went into building and selling properties for quick gains. The most laughable engagement was the marginal loans for financing stock market investment. It was a period of madness, to say the least. It was common happening then for a bank staff to get loan to the tune of N100million for investment in stocks and shares at the prodding of his manager. Even those they called investment bankers then hadn’t the professional competence and discipline to develop strategic analysis to guide such investments, even among themselves.
If the so-called investment bankers could not advise themselves, how could they have advised their clients? Yet they carried on like the best thing to happen to mankind, in their ignorance. That became the era of aggressive marketing among the new generation banks. Those half-naked girls combined personal amorous ambition with the corporate marketing objective of their various employers so well; many of my barely literate traders and investors then (with very large appetite for amorous plays) had a field day. On the other hand, some of those smart female marketing officers became Big Girls.
Vision 2020 threw up so much noise, but the discerning people among us were weary. How much of development can happen in an economy where the growth drivers are counter-productive? So, it was important to know what the economic system is set to contribute to the anticipated growth. As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the FSS 2020 that is the bedrock of all the anticipated growth for vision 2020 was modelled after that of Singapore. As contained in a document presented by Prof C Soludo, the then CBN Governor, 3rd March 2009, Singapore, with a multi-racial population of 4.5million, posted real per capita GDP of USD 30,000. Her literacy rate as at then was put at 95 per cent, had 111 banks, 43 bank representative offices and 165 insurance companies.
I think I should stop reeling out the plusses for Singapore at this point, because the more I do, the more negative picture I seem to get of our dear country. But to say the least, this is instructive. So, we ask again: what was in the minds of our financial architects when they were crafting a Nigerian economic growth model after Singapore, considering the little we now know of that very prosperous economy, as far back as 2009?
Among Soludo’s proposal to enable us grow is a strong CBN, fully integrated regulator for banking, insurance, securities, etc, firm ‘best practices’ regulatory approval system. Perhaps actions of the present CBN governor are predicated upon these policy suggestions, but what will the entrance of the new banks – Mainstream Bank, Enterprise Bank and Keystone (and PROVIDUS, and the recently named one that took over an existing bank) – bring to the table?
The ordinary Nigerian outside the banking industry has grown impatient with the jargons and turns; they want to feel the impact of our banks in their survival and well-being. Banks should stimulate economic growth, support manufacturing, help employment generation, finance adequate housing and drive small and medium enterprises. Only then will they justify their existence.
I Don Talk My Own Finish!
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Since on the 17th that my account as been depited of 19,200 by access bank Today is 28th an my acct as not been credited what is going on?this is how money will just disappear an nobody will be questioned for it this is not the first time it will happen to me