The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) has charged banks and employees in the banking system to leverage more on technology to develop and deliver real time products and services to their increasingly growing and innovation-sensitive customers globally
The President/Chairman of Council of the professional body, Dr. Bayo Olugbemi, gave the charge at the Virtual 2021 CIBN Graduates Induction and Prize Awards Day with theme ‘Breaking New Grounds: Positioning for Global Competitiveness’.
Olugbemi disclosed that a total of 672 new members were admitted into various categories of membership with 321 candidates for the flagship ACIB programme, 41 candidates on Chartered Banker MBA programme, 19 candidates on MSc/ACIB programme and 291 candidates on Microfinance Certification Programme in four countries, including Nigeria, The Gambia, Ghana and Sierra-Leone.
The seasoned banker told all the participants at the virtual ceremony that the COVID-19 pandemic “has accelerated the pace of digital transformation, as such, the future which was anticipated would come in some years’ time is now here with us and technological advancements such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Machine learning, Coding and Programming, Blockchain, Cloud computing etc are being used to develop unique and bespoke products suited to customers changing needs.”
The CIBN President urged the new inductees to be mindful of the seven deadly sins as propounded by Mahatma Ghandi. These include, Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality; Science without humanity; Worship without sacrifice and Politics without principle.
He said: “The world is yours to take, the world is waiting for you, be the best that you can be, be the best version of you, believe in yourself, reach for your peak and aim for the top.”
In his lecture, Guest Speaker and Managing Partner, Verraki Business Solution for Africa, Mr. Niyi Yusuf, said that global economy evolved from agriculture now to the connection economy, identifying technology as the main driver of growth and change.
He explained: “For us in the banking sector, instead of using branch as the sole means of service delivery, we now use the Internet, Web, ATM and mobile Apps as a way of service delivery and instead of doing pure cash or cheque, we use cards; and of recent, we are beginning to use Bitcoin and so, we realise that technology is driving these changes.
“In this world, it is either you disrupt, or you will be disrupted; but you cannot stay in one place, you need to keep moving. What that suggests is for us as Bankers, old skills will not be sufficient for the world of today and you will need to keep developing new skills. You need to keep reinventing yourself so that you also can be relevant in the world of tomorrow”, he advised.
He listed Interswitch, Flutterwave, Kuda, and others as banking sector disruptors, stressing the need for the sector to step-up, beyond digitalization while also charging bankers on the need to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area ( AFCFTA) and be ready for the next opportunity that digitalisation and AFCFTA combines to enhance the efficiency of the nation’s banking system
The Guest Speaker pointed out that the next big opportunity foreseeable is that AFCFTA has turned the size of market into a 1.3 billion, which is the total population of Africa, stressing that “so your market is no longer the 20 million in Lagos or the 500 thousand on your street or the 200 million in Nigeria, but rather your market becomes the entire African Continent.
“Part of the AFCFTA opportunity is the need to feed everyone, to clothe everyone, to house everyone and when you do whole of this, it is about Credit , Payment, Trade and Financing,” Yusuf stressed.
In his remarks, Special Guest of Honour and Managing Director of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) Mr. Hassan Bello, reassured the professional body of the corporation’s support and commended the Institute’s leadership for its various initiatives in the areas of Banking services, Associateship Examinations and Certification programmes.
