Zenith is the only bank or even place i have been to in lagos where i have not been begged for money by the staff! they are quite professional in that regard.

Does that make bankers to be beggars despite the huge salary?

Guys, here is what to do the next time a bank messes with you:

send a mail to a guy named Ozie Williams (oziewilliams@yahoo.co.uk). he writes for guardian Life. He writes a column called Convenience. You should see how those banks quickly react when he takes them on. he basically visits banks, eaterries, hotels, multinationals and so on and reports on their customer service and toilets. his reports are always hillarious. Life is a supplement of the Guardian on sunday and it is free, just buy guardian.

he has yabbed UBA, First bank. union Bank and others on the state of their services and toilets. You will not believe how terrible they can be. the guy is very funny in his description. if those people catch that guy! and it works because they dont want bad publicity

----

I did got some not-too-good experiences with few Nigerian banks recently when I called. As I don't reside in Nigeria and would like to open an account, I decided to call these banks after hearing and reading about the accounts for Nigerians in diaspora. Anyway, I would like to open an account in which I could have either my Dad or Mom as the joint owner of the account so they could use the money to carry out certain projects for me.

To my biggest surpise, opening an account wasnt easy. I called few banks and this is the outcome:-

GTB needs to see me face-to-face before they could open an account for me.
Zenith would rather recommend that I open a naira account through my Dad there. That is, my dad should open me a Naira account and not dom. account where I could be able to see the balance in a for. currency and Naira.
DiamondBank would not open the diaspora account for me if I would have a joint ownership because their kind of account is only meant for just 1 individual.
Oceanic would open the account but I would not be able to transfer funds to my sister's account at GTB because they have disabled inter-banking payments due to security _{(that is how the lady told me over the phone)}

Na wa O!

I would like to have an account that could have an online facility and that I could be able to deposite/transfer money into from my foreign account and be able to see the balance in either Naira,USD,GBP or Euro. Preferably Naira and Euro. Also that I could have a joint ownership for the account and that the joint owner would have rights to withdraw money whenever he/she wants or when I instruct. Finally, when I visit NIgeria, I could be able to use the account myself anytime I am there.

So, I am now wondering how you guys could open a bank account in Nigeria when you are abroad? Please someone advise,

@bjluv

It seems UBA NRN account would suit you to the teeth as they allow you nominate a relative to operate it for you and its designed for Nigerians abroad. These accounts have been disscussed in details on another thread:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-79353.160.html

UBA NRN Details:

http://www.ubaplc.com/newubaplc/defaultNRN.asp

Any good or bad experience with NIB, former CITIBANK? Share with us.
They are the largest bank in US but in Nigeria, they dont even have ATM or online banking.

question:

Any good or bad experience with NIB, former CITIBANK? Share with us.
They are the largest bank in US but in Nigeria, they don't even have ATM or online banking.

NIB or Citibank in Nigeria is not into retail banking. So they don't need ATM's.

UBA
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

€ Etin,

thanks for your reply.I have been reading quite too much stuffs from UBA and that is why I am relunctant. I will have to go through their website and issues again. I heard the charges are ridiculous and that getting through to their branches in naija self na wahala. I wouldnt like all these stress when I eventually decide to visit naija

From what I read on UBA's site, I can only remit money to someone in naija if I reside in UK, US and I think Canada. Is this true?

Please someone, inform me before I send the forms over to their office. Thanks

Hey,great topic.lets see if it will affect bankers in niaraland and make them turn around for good.As young bussiness people,we all need facilities once in a while from banks to grow.
Whenever i hear BANKPHB jingles on the air on consumer loans and stuff,feel betrayed cus i know there just defrauding people.Run 2 accounts at thier adeola hopewell brach,for like 7 months with monthly deposits exceeding 6 figures,they happily collected thier COT and other dreamed up charges only to refuse me an LPO finance facility when i needed one,even though it came from a Blue chip company.
Kudos to Spring Bank for comming to my rescue. Folks in the house,BEWARE of BANK PHB WAYO.

spring bank? What is that one now, pardon  me, i have been out for a while


Updated:
Just checked their website from google. Looks impressive and clean but still doesnt have what I am looking for.

To MAYAT and every other person using online banking with Spring Bank, you have to be careful as the online banking page is not secured despite the fact that their website is well designed and planned. Someone need to inform them to get VeriSign Certificate and make  their site secured.

These days, banks in Europe and USA have the entire website secured and not just the online banking webpage!!!

I have been exchanging mail with a customer service rep of UBA about the NRN but trust me i will have to appear there life and have a face to face discussion before signing any form earning money abroad is not as easy as making money in Nigeria so one has to be exra careful. I will advise you to postpose this your opening account till you are able to find your way home to their office yourself. Just my candid opinion and does not in any way means you cant do it by sending forms to them if you wish but as far as i am concerned i have to sign whatever paper in their office and hand it over personally.

UBA is a pathetic case.

I've pulled out all my money from my two savings Accs with them.

The workers there are overworked, and frustrated

So they pass the aggression to the customers.

What a shame!

You need to see the attitude some of their sleazy female staff display in their Transcorp Hilton Branch in Abuja
(Stupid Touts)

i will send a kudos to this poster cos am about to post such topic.

i familiar with some of these banks thier service is nothing to write home

GT Bank:they are better

Zenith  :better too

First bank ( opebi branch )   if customer are not queue reach the entrance door they'll not attend to you. 1 (staff) can spend 40 minutes with a customer and you can lodge any complain cos no one will answer you.

Union : their service is 0.00000000001 infact @ the begining of a new month you can't transfer money to another branch all the sake thier system is not working.

Intercontinental: fair  

Access: fair
huunnnnnnnnnn i'll stop here

I have just gone through previous posts narrating different experience with Nigerian banks. I found them unbelievable! how can someone go to the bank to withdraw money only to be told he has cancelled his account when he did not? this made me sick because i was actually thinking i would be able to get some money from my account with First bank where i have few hundreds of thousands in the account before leaving Nigeria 4 years ago althoug my friend keep operating the account paying small amount into it but wuite irregularly. There was a time i asked her to check if my account is still active and she was told to reactivate it which she did.

Is there any hope that i will be able to withdraw my money? I am about having headache now because i have planned so much on that money and i have less than 2 weeks to come home.

[quote="ayomifull"]
I have been exchanging mail with a customer service rep of UBA about the NRN but trust me i will have to appear there life and have a face to face discussion before signing any form earning money abroad is not as easy as making money in Nigeria so one has to be exra careful. I will advise you to postpose this your opening account till you are able to find your way home to their office yourself. Just my candid opinion and does not in any way means you can't do it by sending forms to them if you wish but as far as i am concerned i have to sign whatever paper in their office and hand it over personally.  [/quote]

thanks for that info, i am still thinking about it though. should buy some funds now and i would like that dividend is transfered to this account that is why i am hunting for an account now  

[quote="Wham"]You need to see the attitude some of their sleazy female staff display in their Transcorp Hilton Branch in Abuja
(Stupid Touts)[/quote]

that is what you dont see in the part of the world I am in. Female bank staff here are like, o No dont go there!

I'll tell you all this ONE TIME-


Whatever you do- DON'T GO TO AFRIBANK

Intercontinental Bank Awolowo Road Branch

I don't think this people know anything about first impression. I was really disappointed by the way I was treated.

I was planning to open a new account in a reputable bank so, I did my regular test {Enter into bank send some very little amount of money into a friends bank account. At the beginning their settings were just bad for my taste.

For you to pay in, you will walk around for a while before locating the table where the pay in slip is placed. After filling the slip you walk in again to pay the cashier who might have been too busy to attend to you because he/she is chatting with a colleague.

After that again you have move to another table where you will see the mysterious lady, who will judge you based on what you have on your duplicate slip. Here is what she said on that day "Uhn, he only paid in N3,000 ". She said this aloud that I heard and when I asked what she said, she totally ignored me as if she never heard  me talking to her.
She just tossed my slip back at me and I made up my mind that I would never make a mistake of going into any bank with that name, ever.
Oh, did I mention that their service is also slow? All this process took me up to 10min.

Time spent @ max in the following banks:
                                    Location
GTB --      5min             Awolowo
Zenith --  5min             Opposite Ikoyi Hotel
Diamond -- 6min          Awolowo
UBA --       5 min           Awolowo

The times above are the same for either Deposit or Withdrawal and the avergae time spent after random visitation.

My latest bad experience was with UNION savings & loans - a subsidiary of Union Bank

I was given a cheque by a customer of the bank & I had to wait in line (only 1 cashier) for close to 40 mins to cash it, eventually the manager had to attend to some of us. I swore that I wouldn't have anything to do with the bank but alas! I have to be there on monday again to cash another cheque (the customer giving me the cheques is my Oga, otherwise i for refuse)

i bank with Intercontinental, UBA, FCMB & ETB & i must say that they have been pretty good so far maybe because I try to develop a "personal" relationship with everyone from the cashier to the CRO/CSO, Security guards & the manager.

Oceanic bank is another piss off bank to me. They have no customer relations at all, except you are well known to the staffers. The one at Gate in Ibadan is the most irritating I have ever come across.

There is one particular lady ever known with displaying with displaying her attack, chewing gum while responding to customers, you have to tow on a long line sometimes if the bank had just received money in for government salary earners, you might be unlucky to find out that standing on the queue begins from the gate of the bank

This is a very serious issue in the banks and i think the reason is because the customer service jobs are considered dead end jobs ;in most banks you will not get promoted beyond a BO in CS so for the workers there is no motivation.
Prior to the advent of telecoms in Nigeria people never used to complain because they did not know that it is their right as cusatomers to demand good service from providers and not a priveledge as the banks make them believe.
I realised the rot in this industry when as a seasoned customer service person/ trainer i applied for a job in Zenith bank and at the interview i was told i had to many years of experience to work in CS instead i was offered a marketing position.
If only the top guys realised how much business existing and potential is lost by the minute because of poor service delivery ,

hello

i think the problem with Nigeria banks today is over professionalism . that is their problem until they address this issue, our banking sector will be well again. imagine yourself work into your bank to collect money and they will tell you to fill this and fill that . isn't that nonsense . they money you deposited with no stress they are asking you to go through some nonsense things that is rubbish to the moon and sky. not quite a long time i deposited money with first bank through the new Glo first they introduce then, on coming back to collect the money they, started telling me some childish story that makes no meaning. then i beging to ask my self it not the first bank that called themselves the African bank of the nation. then i said to myself there is no second chance for first impression.

can some body give a thumb up for first inland bank there services is worth paying for and worth banking with ?

hello

i think the problem with Nigeria banks today is over professionalism . that is their problem until they address this issue, our banking sector will be well again. imagine yourself work into your bank to collect money and they will tell you to fill this and fill that . isn't that nonsense . they money you deposited with no stress they are asking you to go through some nonsense things that is rubbish to the moon and sky. not quite a long time i deposited money with first bank through the new Glo first they introduce then, on coming back to collect the money they, started telling me some childish story that makes no meaning. then i beging to ask my self it not the first bank that called themselves the African bank of the nation. then i said to myself there is no second chance for first impression.

can some body give a thumb up for first inland bank there services is worth paying for and worth banking with ?

i live n work in Ibadan, the only bank that deserves kudos from me is GTB ring road branch. I JUST HAVE IT RIGHT WITH THEM EVRYTIME. . . NO DUULLING. . .


but reserve my comments about ;UNION BANK, UBA, FIRST INLAND, FIRSTBANK . . .

hello

i think the problem with Nigeria banks today is over professionalism . that is their problem until they address this issue, our banking sector will be well again. imagine yourself work into your bank to collect money and they will tell you to fill this and fill that . isn't that nonsense . they money you deposited with no stress they are asking you to go through some nonsense things that is rubbish to the moon and sky. not quite a long time i deposited money with first bank through the new Glo first they introduce then, on coming back to collect the money they, started telling me some childish story that makes no meaning. then i beging to ask my self it not the first bank that called themselves the African bank of the nation. then i said to myself there is no second chance for first impression.

can some body give a thumb up for first inland bank there services is worth paying for and worth banking with ?

wat most bank staff fail 2 realise is dat witout d customer they wont get padin anycase.however i want 2 say i"m always impress wit d services of 1stinland any day.they don"t make too much noise though but there services are superb.
mr. djluv u can try 1stinland they av a product called save@home designed 4 nigerian is diasporal like u.d site is( firstinlandbank.net)

@odedele, do you work for them? 

The website  is taking ages to load and [s]not to talk of the fact that I can not even open the Internet Bankling link to know if it is secured or not  [/s]

Opened the link with flash me cash but I wasnt impressed. thanks though

PS:-
Is it First Inland that copied UBA's account opening form or UBA copied? 

I had a very bad experience recently at UBA bank. I have an account with the bank already. I took someone there to open an account after that he was to come back for his ATM. Since i did everything for him, _{he is not a literate} i decided to go with him for it, on getting there he missed his signature and instead of the girl _{i won't call her a lady} to tell us politely she was so full of herself and insultive i quickly had to report this to a higher staff. Well she apologized but the point here is this girls behave in a different manner when they see people. They judge people by their look so if you don't come to the bank with a suit or maybe a native attire then you dont have anything to offer or your account is dry or something.

This trend has to stop, it doesn't speak well of our banks.

I have only banked with GTB for the past 6 months; Being a fussy person, I've never had a run in with them. Their customer service is ok so far. My sister has had a run in with Zenith Bank, Admiralty, Lekki. It's mainly in their headquarters that you have exceptional customer service, I guess because Jim is there. They need to translate this to all their branches.

Generally, I think good customer service in Nigeria is the exception not the rule. You see this everywhere you go. I put it down to the fact that Nigerians have no regard for people and they are quite materialistic  to boot. It all boils down to what you are wearing and what you are driving, especially with the ladies who work in these organisations. It's a shame.