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On The Road with the United Bank for Africa in London
By Uche Nworah
The news of the London road show by the
United Bank for Africa PLC
(UBA
PLC) had been
making the rounds among the Nigerian community in London
for weeks long before the train came into town. It was
Christian Udechukwu’s
BusinessinAfricaevents.com, the event organisers
that started the viral campaign through targeted emails;
text messages, internet promotions as well as word of
mouth.
And so it wasn’t surprising that the function hall of
the London Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, venue of the event
could hardly contain the guests that had turned out to
hear UBA’s success story on the evening of Saturday the
18th of March 2007, as well as to explore what financial
opportunities abound within the UBA group and the
relationships they could develop with the bank.
First was the usual mingling and networking session in
the fore room, an opportunity for the UBA team to
informally tell the UBA story. Tony Elumelu, the UBA
Group Managing Director was conspicuously absent but he
wasn’t missed so much because the UBA quartet comprising
Chika Mordi (Executive Director, Investment
Banking and Asset Management), Chidi Okpala
(Head, NRN Banking division, Celine Loader (Group
Brand & Communications Director) and Achuzie Ezenagu
(Group Head, Logistics) ably filled his big shoes. They
equally impressed with their masterful presentations on
UBA’s many products and services that will be of
interest to the Nigerian, African diasporan community as
well as other guests present.
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Chika Mordi
set the ball rolling with a speech titled
‘Creating Africa’s Bank’. He began by
sharing UBA PLC’s vision which he said was
“to be a role model for Africa’s businesses,
and also to be dominant in Africa’s
financial sector”. He gave a brief
background history of UBA and also talked
about their merger with Standard Trust Bank
(STB) in 2004. Chika also gave other key
performance indicators which all sounded
very strong and positive and earned him a
thunderous applause from the audience.
According to him “UBA PLC is the clear
leader in sub-saharan Africa, we have a
deposit base of over 736 billion naira, as
well as over a trillion naira in assets and
contingencies”. |
Compared
to their closets rivals, the figures Chika quoted were
simply phenomenal since according to him “UBA’s closest
rivals only have an asset base of 390 billion naira”.
Chika also told the audience that UBA has the largest
branch network in Nigeria, “We currently have about 516
branches in Nigeria while our closest competitor has
only about 300 branches”, he said.
Chika’s speech was constantly applauded by the audience,
an appreciation of what he and his team have managed to
achieve in so short a time. He mentioned several other
firsts which have been recorded by the bank and gave
examples with the 5 million customer base that UBA
currently has, as well as the several awards it has
received including the ones from Agusto & Co which rated
UBA PLC as the number one bank in Nigeria, The This Day
award which named UBA Nigeria’s Bank of the year and the
Euromoney Best domestic bank in Nigeria award to mention
only a few.
On what drives the bank’s management, Chika said that it
was their vision to become one of Africa’s largest
banks.
Next in line was Chidi Okpala who spoke
passionately about UBA’s novel financial product – The
Non Resident Nigerian (NRN) Account. According to Chidi
“NRN offers non-resident Nigerians the financial peace
of mind they have been craving, particularly those who
have complained in the past that the money they send
home to their families for specific projects were being
mismanaged”. Continuing he said that “UBA was the lead
facilitator in ensuring that linkages between Nigerians
in the diaspora and Nigeria were maintained”. He told
the audience that statistics from external sources show
that Nigerians in the diaspora remit back to Nigeria
annually the sum of over $5 billion and that “the NRN is
a credible, robust and sustainable platform to manage
those remittances, thereby growing the Nigerian
economy”.
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Chidi also spoke briefly about the
Non-resident Ghanaian (NRG) account, a
sister product to the NRN account. He
particularly got the audience excited when
he informed them that UBA now offers
mortgage products to Nigerians in the
diaspora for properties in Lagos, Abuja,
Port Harcourt and Enugu.
In her speech, Celine Loader who
until her UBA appointment was the editor of
UK based Aspire magazine thanked the
audience for attending, according to her
“UBA is grateful to you all for coming out
this Saturday evening to listen to UBA’s
story. L- R Paulette, Bayo Chioma,
Uche Nworah |
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As you all know, UK regulations prohibits us from fully
discussing our current share offer; however our advice
to those enquiring about how to buy UBA shares is to
first get a stock broker in Nigeria”. She directed the
guests to access the ubagroup.com website for further
information.
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Amongst those present in the audience were
Garba Zakari, the minister of trade
and economic affairs at the Nigeria High
Commision who represented Dr. Christopher
Kolade, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the
court of St. James, Bola Mogaji (naijacommunity.com),
Abiodun Olusesan (CEO of Radiant
Glow), Ebere Nzewuji of Ben
Television, Obi Emelonye (Nollywood
Producer and Director) Ezey Marcel
(Principal Director of Concepts College),
Jideofor Adibe of Adonis & Abbey
Publishers and many more.
Chief Yemisi Sanusi who has been a UBA
customer for over 30 years gave a testimony
about her impression of the bank to the
applause of the audience. While making a
parting commentary, Abiodun Olusesan of
Radiant Glow cosmetics said that he was
quite impressed with the various
presentations and hoped to explore further
relationships with the bank regarding the
assistance they can give to small and medium
scale enterprises like his.
Chief Yemisi Sanusi (left) |
He was full of praise and admiration for the UBA team,
“I’m happy seeing this young Nigerians driving and
changing Nigeria’s financial sector, I see it as a sign
of better things to come in the future”, he concluded.
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updated
1 October 2007 |
