What banks should do
SIR: The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently came up with a new N25 billion capital base for banks in order to ensure soundness and stability in the financial system and to bring back public confidence, focus and plausible growth to the real sector of the economy and to beef up capital adequacy of banks.
Initially, many chief executives of the banks became jittery. They talked about loss of jobs, panic withdrawals by customers, sudden death of some banks, and even questioned the legal framework which enabled the CBN to come up with such a decision.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange has been of immense assistance to the banks to meet the new CBN demand. The capital market is agog at present with prospectus of banks sourcing for cheap funds from the general public. CBN has warned that, this is only one of the many measures to be taken.
Banks should therefore introduce incentive products, assist depositors to obtain loans, perfect on-line services for both savings and current account holders, give awards or gifts to deserving customers, reduce time spent on transactions, adopt appropriate technology, embrace lending for investment under the small and medium equity investment scheme and research on articulate management/board decisions that would be favourable to macroeconomic policies to make them attain full potential for the country's comparative economic growth.
Frank Oruore,
Ikorodu, Lagos State
