Banks, customers and COVID-19

Dr Olusuyi Adaramewa

Sir: Globally, banks occupy a primal locale in the annals of commerce and business. In some jurisdictions, they are ascribed the sobriquet of fortune-builders or makers. Additionally, through their positive and aggressive interventionism, they may turnaround the fortune of a penniless being into that of a billionaire: no thanks to the fact that the client, parades merely a bankable idea, despite the lack of financial muscle or wherewithal. This therefore, willy-nilly coheres with the saying of the wise that: “ideas rule the world.”

Look at the goodies that COVID-19 has conferred on e-commerce, or online businesses. See the fortunes that the pandemic has unleashed or better still, foisted on pharmaceuticals, food vendors, couturiers and confectioners. Expectedly, this may deepen the fraternity between the banks and their customers that are in this market segment.

Contrariwise, imagine the traumatic pains that the pandemic has fobbed off on some businesses such as music, entertainment, hospitality, tourism, airlines et al. Indeed, according to the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, the “aviation sector alone, has been losing about N21 billion monthly since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.”

This is why one needs to empathise with the Nigerian banks owing to the fact that they are faced with a lot of challenges and have not been able to meet fully the demands of their customers since the outbreak of the deadly COVID-19. With the lockdown, the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) became the darling of those who were desirous of withdrawing cash. The customers had no choice than to stick tenaciously to this medium. Also, one must equally commend the efforts of the Mobile Money Agents/Operators and some merchants who activated and infused life into their hitherto moribund PoS/cash-back operations as veritable tools for cash withdrawals.

Consistent with good corporate governance, coupled with the social responsibility of the Nigerian banks, they responded swiftly to the clarion call to lift the nation from the pangs of the pandemic. It is on record that the banking community was one of the leaders in the private sector initiative via CA-COVID to complement the efforts of the federal and state governments in order to relive the Nigerian citizens of the burden of the pandemic. Under the headship of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the bankers and other stakeholders were able to put up an isolation centre in Lagos, and more were being expected across the country. There is an ongoing feeding programme for some of the less privileged and vulnerable Nigerians.

On the downside, if care is not taken, all the gains of these laudable efforts may be frittered away, unless and until the banks are mindful of the need to respond quickly to the plight of their numerous stakeholders. If decisive actions are not taken by the banks to extinguish the gulf between the banking halls and their customers, the banking industry would be vicariously liable for fanning the embers of the exponential upsurge of the pandemic. It is disheartening to see that most of the ATM machines have no hand sanitizers, no security operatives to enforce social or physical distancing and the rest.

The banking industry should embark on some devolution of power to their TRUSTED mobile money agents across the length and breadth of the country to handle and process some basic banking activities like enquiries, complaints etc that could keep hundreds of customers off the banking halls. The telecoms industry has imbibed this culture and the success story is there for all to see: their agents now register SIM cards, among other ancillary services.

It is apt to commend the bold steps taken by the Bankers Committee to nip in the bud the dark cloud of unemployment that was already hovering over the heads of the banks’ employees despite their innocence in the emergence of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Aside from sending wrong signals to the entire world in general and the Nigerian state in particular, the massive retrenchment would have given other employers of labour the vigour to key into this unpleasantness. This would have been incongruous with the mood of the nation at this time. Put starkly, it would have cast a grave doubt on the realism of any endearment in the interactions between the banks and their avowed stakeholders.

• Dr Olusuyi Adaramewa,

Lagos.