Skye Bank School Seminar Series

Fri, Jun 27, 2014
By publisher
4 MIN READ

Banking Briefs

SKYE Bank Plc has instituted a financial literacy seminar series for secondary schools in the country. The seminar series have been designed to make the Nigerian youths financially responsible. The bank said the seminar series were aimed at raising awareness on child and youth financial empowerment and inclusion by taking financial literacy seminar to schools in the country.

According to a statement, the bank said the initiative was one of its contributions towards ensuring the future economic prosperity of the country by empowering youths with the necessary financial and entrepreneurial skills. Meanwhile, studies have shown that financial literacy is an important component of sound financial decision-making and a lot of positive correlations have been established between financial knowledge and self -beneficial behaviour.

“This seminar will help the students acquire the necessary financial knowledge and develop a corresponding financial intelligence that will be useful for their life’s journey”, the bank said.

FCMB to Raise $300m for Consumer Lending

Balogun
Balogun

FIRST City Monument Bank Group Plc, plans to raise about $300million this year to boost consumer lending. Ladi Balogun, chief executive officer, FCMB, said that the bank might consider issuing Eurobonds if market conditions were favourable. He said: “Our preferred source of funding has been the loan markets as opposed to bond markets due to more stable pricing and we will probably get to about 40 percent of our loan book being personal lending.”

According to him, the bank plans to increase its loan book by 20 percent to N540billion this year, as it joined other banks in raising debts to boost credit to consumers and fund infrastructural development in Africa’s largest economy. However, the bank is targeting a return on equity of 15 percent this year and 20 percent in 2016, compared with 13 percent in 2013, Balogun said adding that the bank was also planning to increase its customers to four million by 2016, from 2.5 million.

Six New Directors for Sterling Bank

SIX new directors including a woman have joined the board of Sterling Bank Plc. Their appointment, according to the bank, is in line with the gender ratio requirement of the Central Bank of Nigeria. It said the new appointments were part of the renewed effort to strengthen its board in line with corporate governance and sustainability culture.

The new board members whose appointments have been approved by the CBN, are Tamarakare Yekwe, Omolara Akanji, Asue Ighodalo, Raghavan Karthikeyan, Kayode Lawal and Abubakar Suleiman. The bank said the appointment of the six professionals with diverse experience in the private and public sectors, would further enhance the capacity of the board to deliver on its corporate goals.

Yemi Adeola, chief executive officer, Sterling Bank, expressed optimism that the bank would benefit from the wealth of experience of the six directors and argued that their appointments were carried out on the basis of skills, professional experience and corporate best practices. He added that the bank was also mindful of the need to be gender sensitive in the constitution of its board members.

Adeola
Adeola

Until their appointments, Tamarakare Yekwe was the pioneer attorney-general and commissioner for justice, Bayelsa State; and also served as a director in a number of institutions including the Federal Savings Bank of Nigeria, Continental Merchant Bank of Nigeria Plc, International Merchant Bank Plc and the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria.

Omolara Akanji, who was a member of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force, started her career with the CBN in 1978 as an assistant economist. She rose through the ranks, retiring in December 2007 as the Director, Trade and Exchange Department and also served as a consultant to the CBN between 2008 and 2011.

Asue Ighodalo is a partner in Banwo & Ighodalo, a leading corporate and commercial law firm in Nigeria, which he founded in partnership in 1991. Raghavan Karthikeyan replaced Rajiv Pal Singh who completed his tenure as a representative of State Bank of India in 2013. He is presently the chief general manager, International Banking in State Bank of India, Mumbai, and a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.

Lawal started his career with NBM Bank where he worked from 1987 till 2005 and during this period, he excelled in various marketing roles and was subsequently appointed as the bank’s treasurer while Suleiman started his banking career as a management associate in MBC International Bank, now part of First Bank Plc in 1998. In 1990, he moved to Citibank Nigeria where he worked in various roles covering Asset & Liability Management and Market Risk Management.

However, between 2003 and 2011, he served as treasurer in Trust Bank of Africa and subsequently in Sterling Bank before being appointed as integration director to deliver a seamless merger with the former Equitorial Trust Bank

Compiled by Chinwe Okafor 

— Jul. 7, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT

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