Zenith, Intercontinental Bank, UBA On CNN!

I travel regularly and I'm kind of addicted to CNN.

Until recently,I always felt really proud of seeing Nigerian banks(Zenith,Interconinental,UBA) advertise on CNN esp when I'm abroad.

But I'm getting tired of these,because ,frankly,whats the point? If a bank is mainly located in Nigeria,why would it spend millions of dollars advertising on CNN & be viewed in almost 200 countries?

What are these banks doing to erdicate poverty in Nigeria through loans,schorlarships ,education grants etc and most importantly influencing politics?

I mean the latest Intercontinental ad,says GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS-LAGOS ! At 1st glance one would feel proud of the recognition,Lagos is getting & by extension Nigeria. . . . . but tell me is it not this same dirty Lagos lacking portable water & decent public transportation?

So what am I saying? The banks should do more locally to create the kind of investment climate they probably seek through their global branding campaigns on CNN.

Just a few thoughts

I agree with you 100%. Bank PHB also recently reared its head with ads on CNN. Could this be another frontier of competition among Nigerian banks?

True talk! You couldn't have said it better.

Bank PhB is the most innovative of 'em all!


Imagine, any account opened helps a student!

@ Jarzinho,

How is another company's ads a problem for you?

When did it become their jobs to eradicate poverty?

This is a business outfit so they are free to run their company
and spend their advertising budget as they deem fit as long
as they are within the laws.

He's talking about CSR

Um, why shouldn't they advertise on CNN. It gives them more foreign exposure. More and more companies in the west are aware of them thus making it significantly easier for them to attract more foreign investment than those who do not advertise worldwide. With the extra funds they can do even more in the way of helping eradicate poverty in Nigeria. Of course I could be speaking complete nonsense but I genuinely feel Jim Ovie and his counterparts are qualified and educated enough to know what they are doing.

Yes, the banks need to advertise on big media like CNN. The 419 SCAM has done much damage to foreign investment drives towards Nigeria. Appearance of Nigerian owned Fitch rated banks on CNN serves to reassure potential foreign business partners. Though sometimes I feel that with all the negative press emanating from Nigeria it's a kinda outa place, but on the bigger picture, it's OK.

what's the big deal if they advertise on cnn, they have the money, as long as the dont fold up, that's where wahala will start

@poster
no. 1 many of these banks are planning on extending their actitvities out of nigerian shores
no.2 poverty eradication is not a bank's job. it is the government's.

@poster
The consolidation process in Nigerian Banks is an ongoing process which includes
a) Internationalisation of our local banks , Nigerian baanks now rule the waves throughout the West African region. Full fledged Nigerian banks and not branches now operate in UK and US(STB is in New York).
b) International trade definitely involves Nigerian Banks, and if you make noise, the entire world will hear. This means banking transactions will be done with Naija banks that are visible.
c) Nierian banks are now being listed one way or the other in internationalised markets, e.g GTBank, Diamond bank, They need to advertise.
d) There's also nothing wrong with Zenith Bank supporting Inside Africa (a CNN programme propagating Africa), since they intend to be Number in Africa by contesting with South AFRICAN BANKS.

am sure other people would join their own, but i think they can only be questioned if they were not advertising in Naija, which they do.

Although the banks are expected to contribute to the development of their local community through corporate sponsorship which most of them engage in, it's entirely up to the banks to spend their money on whatever. If they like, they can advertise in heaven, it's their money. The Nigerian government has enough money to eradicate poverty in our land, but a few swallow all that fund. Can u imagine 4.5B Naira in excess for the airport tower contract. This is hell!

they have attracted my attention and i am considering Zenith

I guess the whole point to it, is to put Nigeria on the map, besides the banks are expanding, most of them are into regional expansion, it was in the papers today (Punch) that GT Bank has opened in the UK, so , i guess the banks are looking beyond today and now, they are looking at tomorrow and except you have the blueprints or the strategy documents of thebanks, you cant tell how big their dreams are.

i hope that answers your question

I feel people who do not understand how investments and banking work should close their mouths and not expose their illiteracy.

Um, why shouldn't they advertise on CNN. It gives them more foreign exposure. More and more companies in the west are aware of them thus making it significantly easier for them to attract more foreign investment than those who do not advertise worldwide. With the extra funds they can do even more in the way of helping eradicate poverty in Nigeria

Thanks for this.


@Poster

When did it become your concern on how banks run their business? When did it become bank's responsibility to uplift poverty.
Yes anyone can definitely help in the area but speaking against them because they choose to run their business how they want is out of place.

~Lady~:

I feel people who do not understand how investments and banking work should close their mouths and not expose their illiteracy.

Incase you didn't notice,this is not the sexuality thread,state your point intelligently & don't insult,please! 

~Lady~:

@Poster
When did it become your concern on how banks run their business?

When did it become your concern not to read clearly? I'm stating my point & trying to open up discussion for the leaders of tomorrow 2 contribute. Stop being anti-discourse ,please !

~Lady~:

When did it become bank's responsibility to uplift poverty.
Yes anyone can definitely help in the area but speaking against them because they choose to run their business how they want is out of place.

This is more like it,nobody said it was their responsibility & I appreciate that they're business people,the point I'm trying to make is that they should bring their enormous financial muscle to bear on the country,so their exposure would reap more dividends .

Finally I'm not 'speaking against them',I'm only taking advantage of my constitutionally enshrined right to free speech.

Gbosko:

Yes, the banks need to advertise on big media like CNN. The 419 SCAM has done much damage to foreign investment drives towards Nigeria. Appearance of Nigerian owned Fitch rated banks on CNN serves to reassure potential foreign business partners. Though sometimes I feel that with all the negative press emanating from Nigeria it's a kind of outa place, but on the bigger picture, it's OK.

419 or NEPA failures?

There is something disturbing in a country of extreme hardship and banks seem to prosper. May be there are genuine reasons that an economic novice like me can't see, but I'm sure our unchanging corrupt system will surely prevail.

abegi pls if you dont know then ask or do some research,what are they advertising on cnn for,they r just advertising their ignorance
uba has just been slammed with about 5 million dollars fine for money laundering and still expecting more charges because of unwholesome business practices imagine if they d had adverts on cnn and they had foreigners banking with them isnt that a serious loss of confidence?at least nigerian customers will still cover their shame and its not jst uba ,zenith and the rest of the great banks are involved in helping corrupt government officials and biz men lauder money abroad

they do not operate like banks abroad yet they want the same exposure to a wider market,they do not give customers loans without a collateral or without knowing a bank manager

nothing like micro finance loans
their interest rates is like higher than a kite and going higher
their only advantage is keeping money and taking it out
and we now come to the card fraud which is costing them millions if not billions already,instead of them to use the money they r giving cnn to update their security,buy bullion vans so that policemen will not be killed like flies cctv and update security generally

the same cnn that will do several articles on why africa including nigeria is unstable will now show an advert for an african bank and tell u to put ur money in and u really think they willpls dont make me laugh personally i think its a dumb idea

It seems the poster doesn't know who should be responsible for poverty eradication in Nigeria, our banks advertising themselves on CNN is a good omen for the entire Nigerian market at large, Intercontinental bank was recently licensed as a full-fledge bank offering banking services in the UK and the fact that Lagos-Nigeria was mentioned as the coporate hq made me proud. http://sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2008/jun/30/national-30-06-2008-003.htm
So I'm really trilled at the idea and I want the other business sector to emulate them.

For narrow minded folks like me, investor do not invest by watching CNN, they look at their balance sheets, and credit ratings . No wise investor would invest in Zenith by watching CNN. Another gimmick from Banks who followed Orji Uzo Kalu' foot steps for advertising on CNN even when he was running for gubernatorial elections. Reminder 90% of Abians do not have cable TV.

adconline:

For narrow minded folks like me, investor do not invest by watching CNN, they look at their balance sheets, and credit ratings . No wise investor would invest in Zenith by watching CNN. Another gimmick from Banks who followed Orji Uzo Kalu' foot steps for advertising on CNN even when he was running for gubernatorial elections. Reminder 90% of Abians do not have cable TV.

lmao!!!

Everybody on this thread is making sense any way, however there are bascially two of thoughts on CSR and from the discussions above, the schools are both well represented.

However, am part of the school of thought that believes that business should give back to the community part of the profit that they made from such community. As long as they are doing that, how they spend their advert budget is entirely their biz.

Since we've all agreed that the world is now a global village, they are allowed to use any medium and channel that will give them the best exposure-leverage globally.

This is just another case of lack of prioritization, strategic management, organisation,imcompetence, bad advise and financial planning!
How many people abroad have bank accounts with this cash cows OR how many non-nigerian residents would want to invest in the volatile and instable financial market in Nigeria, OR how many Nigerian's have access to CNN daily?!
squandering investors money recklessly is just the order of the day in Nigerian banks
Natwest and Halifax bank would not come to NTA 7 to come and advertise would they?!
Investors know where to go when they need to stretch their money, and why would
they even trust Nigerian banks, with all the fraudulent activities, mismanagement and
incompetency hanging above and looming in the banking and financial industry!

Pointless i would conclude!!

Banking in Nigeria is only successful with the BIG and MAJOR players. If you have the money, you can throw it around in CSR and other stuff. But when you’re still scrambling for deposits at all costs and getting customers neck deep into credits, like some banks in Nigeria, you can't have the capcity to be advertising on CNN and throwing money around like that.

The bigger banks just need to broaden their view, know that leave-off local competition, act locally but think globally, be the exact representation of themselves, improve the quality of their Human Resource and not the shallow Human Resource we have in most banks in Nigeria, have a huge IT investment, have an eye for REAL business initiatives and opportunities and not just chase government funds, help in the Nigerian economy diversification by locating areas to raise to the limelight and this eye for investment (and not just oil money), will give an edge.

99% of Nigerian banks are not thinking they are just chasing. What will make a customer refuse other offers but seek to invest his/her future in your hands no matter what, is what you have been able to invest in your Human resource not by forcing work on them but by doing the work. When they see and excellent management system, they'd follow suit and belong. The work becomes theirs and they have a sense of ownership and management.

This is of course will go a long way to tell on the success or failure of an organization.


Cheers

@ ALL

All of you do not seemto realized the international exposure this advert on CNN can create. Let me give you a parctical example ECO Bank seem to be war lord in terms of market share in post conflict Liberia. UBA have recently opened a branch in Monrovia as part of its wider expnasion drive into West Africa. Becosz of UBA advert on DSTV a lot of Liberians have come to terms & familier wit the UBA brand & Logo. Even before the first account was opened 40% of Liberians are already Familier with UBA as a strong bank

One thing you guys need to realise is that no especially a (limited liability bank)bank will throw away money just because they want to impresswhen they have their shareholders to account to.banking in modern day nigeria is moving beyond our shores and the more other countries are familiar with these banks (before it gets to their country) it will be easier for them to transct business with them when it finally gets to them.and any individual that needs tto do business in Nigeria will be more likely to do it with banks that is widely known

hmm,

Our future really looks bleak. Everyday the Nigerian dream looks even dimmer.

I hear some people say, Bank is a business centre,  I hear you,  foolish talk.

But is it really suppose to be a business centre?,  the backbone of any economy is the financial sector, the banks, yes, they have my money and your money,  does it make sense that they stupidly forget that they were born in Nigeria and need to support Nigeria.

One of the guy that won the nobel prize for peace in 2006, Muhammad Yunus; founder Grameen Bank , won it for developing the micro credit loaning system, which offers Loans to poor people without any financial security , I listened to the guy on CNN, even when there was great flood, and people that borrowed were losing money, he still believed in them and borrowed them.

Was he recognised for impacting and successfully running a business model based on support for lives of people?,  absolutely.

Let's stop fooling ourselves,  We need these monies to develop ourselves, if the govt. don't do anything, we can, and we need the money in these banks to do so,

Why should they even open branches in liberia or Ghana, yes, Why? or what are they looking for in the UK, foolish people, fools!!!, I need to start my own bank soon,  when they cannot offer a simple solution on how to borrow us money without asking for our heads.

The govt. is not doing anything, the financial sector is making it stiffer, foolish people, my conclusion,  like every other Nigerian,  "e go better" or better still, the world is coming to an end, hmm, 

Damn!, as if CNN cares, or the investor is foolish!

Theres nothing wrong in Nigerian banks advertising on foreign cable channels. You need to live abroad to understand how twisted an average European, American and Asian view Nigeria and Nigerians. We need a lot of positive image laundering to the world and its nice these bank are doing these. Even Indians think Nigeria is rubbish ( which I personally find insulting especially coming from these dirty and stinking part of the world)

Also dont forget that these banks are now opening shop abroad so their target market is fast expanding accross the globe and they need to advertise. Dont forget, business that fails to advertise will be sold through advertising!

China, the land of counterfeits, yes, where democrazy is not practised, is doing fine!!!

Because they hold on to their own, they develop well enough for people to believe in them,

A simple question sir, what are they really advertising?,

Their inefficiency, which we all go through on a daily basis,

We have what it takes to make it happen, we have it!!!, people only value you, when you value yourself, let them invest well in our people who interestingly own all their cash.

You must be under the illussion that only perfect companies advertise, if so there wont be ANY advert throughout the world. I dont know where you live or how much global experience you have, but if do have international exposure, you will admit that world's top companies has many inadequacies, errors and terrible mistakes and this doesnt mean they cease advert. I have worked for 15 out of the world's biggest companies accross about 17 countries (FTSE 100 & NYSE 250) as a consultant and see that there is no perfect system anywhere in the world.

Come to banks here in the UK and sit for an hour to see the kind of ridiculous mistakes are performed on customers' accounts.

When you start you business, dont advertise and be waiting for when you will be a perfect entity, you'll see how soon you will be grounded, som serious entrpreneur will buy you out after seeing the offer on an advert!

Advertise to who?,  us or them?,  u know how much CNN will charge?

Point is they need to affect us positively, it's our money they are using, they need to stop dreaming all this global thing!!!!

It's about the number of lives their businesses can affect.


Speak to 10 Nigerians and see how well banks really affect their lives, how many of them are really proud of us. How many SMEs have they really supported, ,