Banks move their halls to the masses in their drive to capture idle funds from the informal sector
By Adejuwon Osunnuyi
Sarah Awoniyi has had a tiring day. The busy Idumagbo market would be the fourth she would be visiting in the day since nine o’clock when she set out for the business of the day. A marketer with a bank which has its headquarters on Oyin Jolayemi Street, Victoria Island, Awoniyi has been handed, on employment, a tough brief : from the markets on Lagos Island, mobilise a target of N20 million every month.
Across Nigeria, bank marketers like Awoniyi pound local markets to mobilise deposits for their employers as the financial institutions hunt for funds. The Central Bank of Nigeria reiterates that billions of naira float in the informal sector of the economy and has gone ahead to license over 100 microfinance banks to mobilise the funds in that sector with a view to driving the economy, especially manufacturing, which is considered the heart of any economy. Microfinance banks are established to operate closer to the middle and low-income earners, most of whom are reluctant to undergo the rigours associated with the formalities in conventional banks and cannot cope with their suicidal lending rates.
In justifying the reforms in the banking industry, the CBN had argued that banks, being vital catalysts in stimulating economic growth, needed recapitalisation in order to give more Nigerians access to financial resources. The apex bank posited that this would in no time energise small and medium scale businesses and return the almost non-existent middle class.
Some players in the informal sector that TheNEWS spoke with admitted they find conventional banks unattractive because, as Sunday Oseni, a bus conductor put it, banking processes, like opening an account and withdrawing money, are cumbersome. For instance, a prospective customer who intends to open a savings account is expected to produce his utility bills, passport photographs and one or two people to serve as his referees. Oseni said he hasn’t the time to “waste going through all those processes on my own money.” The conductor, who boasted that it is not as if he does not earn enough money daily to maintain a bank account, complained of how bank officials expect him, a stark illiterate to understand the complexities in their documentation. More importantly, he said, his friends have told him the minimum deposit demanded by the banks to open an account is so high (N2000-N5000), the interest they pay on savings accounts so low and the charges they deduct so numerous that patronising them is not worth the trouble. Moreover, Oseni quipped, there is little or no hope he can get a loan from the banks to buy his own bus.
Banks, especially those with a strong bent for the retail end, do not seem unconscious of this line of thinking that pervades the informal sector of the economy. Desperate to exploit the huge pool of funds there, the banks are playing Muhammed: if the mountain will not visit him, to the mountain must he go if he direly needs the qualities it offers. Post-consolidation, with the competition for deposits among the banks so intense, they have been deploying marketers to local trading centres, as well as to workshops run by mechanics, technicians, tailors and other such artisans to cultivate their patronage. Even on the streets, bank marketers accost pedestrians to enlist them on their depositors’ register. In essence, banks have extended their operations from the cosy confines of those air-conditioned halls to the open humid and dirty environment of the commercial markets and streets.
These days, it is not uncommon to see marketers of financial institutions like Bank PHB, Diamond Bank, Wema Bank, FCMB or Springbank in markets and on the streets across Lagos State wooing traders, technicians and passers-by customers to open instant savings accounts. This condescending format, which recognises the customer as king, concedes virtually all the modalities demanded in the banking hall. On the streets, Bank PHB allows a prospective customer to open a savings account with as low as N500. The opening of the account also lacks the usual bottlenecks. Customers who do not have passport photographs are snapped instantly and their Automated Teller Machine cards, together with their account numbers, given out to them immediately.
The bank’s Group Managing Director, Francis Atuche, while speaking on the “Retail Street Storm” initiative, said it was aimed primarily at putting smiles on the faces of the bank’s retail customers. Atuche posited that storming the streets is in line with the bank’s commitment to encourage Nigerians to imbibe the savings culture and, in the process, create a pool of funds that can be invested in the economy and, consequently, propel economic growth. “Given our commitment to touching lives, we are the propeller in your feet ready to support you on a leap to unimaginable heights in life. We are not just another bank next door. We are a thinking bank, continually seeking to nurture a banking public that is unrestricted by any form of challenge,” he said. Customers who spoke with this magazine expressed their delight in being given the chance to become account holders without any stress.
To sustain the customers’ confidence, the bank has launched a promo tagged “You Go Win.” Atuche described the promo, which suffers no class segregation, as a fulfilment of the baxnk’s promise to continually provide new platforms that would financially empower its customers. The promo is primarily targeted at energising the passive saving habits of the average Nigerian. Encouraging Nigerians to save, Atuche posited, is another way of encouraging them to grow the economy.
The promo encourages each Bank PHB’s depositor to increase his/her account balance by N5,000 every month over the next six months. Any depositor who does that stands a chance of winning gas cookers, coolers, television sets, DVD players, refridgerators and micro wave ovens in the six weekly draws that will hold. Any depositor who increases his/her account balance by N20,000 in any month while the promo lasts stands the chance of winning, in addition to any of the above items, a brand New Hyundai Accent Car.
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