Banking Briefs
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FIDELITY Bank Plc and PayPal, an online payment service company, are collaborating to promote electronic payments system as part of the drive to boost the Central Bank of Nigeria’s cashless policy. As such, Fidelity Bank recently announced the acceptance of its payment system on the PayPal platform.
With the collaboration, the bank said its cardholders could now shop from the world’s major international retailers with more flexibility and convenience. The measure is regarded as part of the bank’s efforts at boosting electronic payments and fostering ease of transactions following the nationwide adoption of the CBN’s cashless policy which took off on July 1.
Adedeji Olowe, divisional head, Electronic Banking, Fidelity Bank, said that the introduction of PayPal was a deliberate attempt to make financial services easy and accessible to the bank’s customers. “We believe that our customers will benefit immensely from this innovation, and the registration process is straightforward,” Olowe said. He also explained that the bank would adopt a phased approach to the deployment because only shopping on international websites would be available initially while other services would be introduced in the coming months.
First Bank Appoints Chief Financial Officer
FIRST Bank of Nigeria has appointed Adesola Adeduntan as the chief financial officer of the bank. He is replacing Adebayo Adelabu, who was recently appointed a deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on the seat.
According to the bank, Adeduntan’s appointment, which is in the executive director cadre, has received the statutory approval of the CBN. It said the development was in harmony with its corporate transformation and business expansion strategy.
Bisi Onasanya, group managing director, First Bank, said that the choice of the new CFO was in line with the bank’s commitment to attracting the best resources in the industry and sustaining best practice in its operations adding that the appointment was meant to enhance the capacity of the executive management and Board by deepening specialisation and strengthening the corporate governance culture of the bank, which is now in its 120th year.
Adeduntan is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria with more 20 years experience. Prior to his appointment, he was a director and the pioneer chief financial officer of Africa Finance Corporation.
Excess Charges Top Bank Customers’ Complaints — CBN
THE Central Bank of Nigeria has revealed that excess bank charges constituted 50 percent of customers’ complaints treated by the apex bank as at May this year. Also the bank said it had also treated 4,142 fraud-related petitions against various banks in the country. This, it said, resulted in the refund of N14.69billion to aggrieved customers.
Umma Dutse, director, Consumer Protection Department, CBN, in Lagos at a summit with the theme: ‘Value-based banking: banks and their customers’ organised by the Bank Customers’ Association of Nigeria, BCAN, said that the petitions were from the inception of the office when it was still known as the Financial Policy and Regulation Department in March 2010 to May 2014.
Dutse said that the petitions were based generally on issues relating to excess charges, unauthorised deductions, dishonoured cheques, cheque conversion, foreign remittances, and Automated Teller Machine, ATM, frauds. He, however, noted that the excess charges constituted more than half of the petitions received and treated within the period. He attributed some of the reasons for the ugly trend to greed, poor service delivery by banks as well as failure to adhere to the provisions of extant guidelines and agreements.
He explained that banking activities should exceed just promoting and supporting fairness between providers and consumers of banking services, but that stability, growth and sustainability of the banking system should be the focus.
Compiled by Chinwe Okafor
— Jul. 14, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
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