Banking Briefs, BREAKING NEWS
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KEYSTONE Bank Limited has promoted 627 members of its staff between the ranks of executive trainee and deputy manager grades. Philip Ikeazor, managing director of the bank, said that the promotion was in line with the management’s commitment to recognise merit and reward.
Ikeazor said the promotion was also a major stride in the spirit of fostering and building a high performance and engaged workforce, delivering convenient and reliable banking services to its esteemed customers. “The criteria for the promotion, was based on performance assessment score, promotion readiness, tenure on current grade and absence of disciplinary actions,” he said.
He congratulated his staff and admonished them to be spurred to higher performance and to also exhibit a more passionate approach towards contributing to and achieving the bank’s customer-centric goals. According to him, the bank is technology-driven with over 200 business offices in Nigeria and subsidiaries in the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda.
CBN on Non-compliance with Sustainable Banking Principles
SARAH Alade, acting governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, has warned that non-compliance with the nine sustainable banking principles by banks in the country could lead to sanctions. She said that the central bank was yet to set any specific deadline for compliance because the concept was still relatively new. However, she added that the central bank would continue to monitor the banks to ensure compliance.
She said: “Banks and other financial institutions under our supervision will have to comply and we have issued a circular to that effect. Any bank or financial institution that fails to comply will face sanction. There will be consequences for that. But we want to, first for all, begin by making a case to the banks on why they need to follow the nine sustainability principles.
“They could actually be profitable while maintaining the three Ps of profit, planet and people because we want to move from banking to sustainable banking.” According to Alade, the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 has made the question of sustainability crucial because the global financial industry saw the futility and short-sightedness of just focusing on profits as the whole financial system actually failed.”
As part of the efforts aimed at ensuring compliance, Alade said the CBN had asked banks to ensure that women occupy 40 percent of the leadership positions in the banks, and 30 percent of board positions. She said that in many countries of the world, even in Europe and the US, there were problems in making women occupy certain positions. The EU has made rules on that to make it mandatory.”
New Broom at Fidelity Bank
NNAMDI Okonkwo, the newly-appointed managing director/chief executive officer of Fidelity Bank Plc, has raised the expectations of shareholders. He told them to expect higher dividend from their investment. He said his goal was to consolidate on the achievements of his immediate past CEO and that he would also build on those achievements.
Okonkwo also said he would take the bank to a level that when he looks back five years from now, he would realise that he did not labour in vain. He said that the bank’s shareholders should expect that the bank would maintain a culture of steady payment of dividend. “In the last eight years, Fidelity bank has paid dividend without failure and we do not intend to discontinue that culture rather they will get higher dividend.”
Christopher Eze, Chairman of the Board of Directors, said the bank was lucky to have Nnamdi as its new boss. He said, “We are happy and have been very lucky. God has blessed our effort as we have a good objective to which everybody is aspiring and contributing. We have had good luck that the first and second managing directors were committed to the bank. We believe the new one will also follow the tradition.”
Reginald Ihejiahi, the bank’s immediate past CEO, was appointed to take charge of the bank’s affairs in December 2003. Under his leadership, the bank was said to have recorded success in many areas.
Noted among these were: growth of shareholders’ funds from N2bilion in 2003 to N167billion in 2013; expansion of branch network from about 22 branches to 213 branches; increase in customer base from 150,000 to about 2.5 million; rise in total assets from about N20billion to over N1trillion.
Compiled by Chinwe Okafor
— Mar. 17, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
Tags: Central Bank of Nigeria Christopher Eze Fidelity Bank Plc Gambia Keystone Bank Limited Liberia Nnamdi Okonkwo Philip Ikeazor Reginald Ihejiahi Sarah Alade Sierra Leone Uganda
