As the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to ravage various economies across the globe, Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC, a member of Standard Bank Group, has advised that Nigeria and her citizens must take proactive measures needed to avoid the looming recession that is expected to follow the pandemic.

Speaking during the Stanbic IBTC ‘Blue Talk’ Webinar on YouTube, Akinbamidele Akintola, Head, Sub Saharan Africa Equity Sales, Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers Limited, said that this year has been challenging for businesses globally, because of the impact of coronavirus, and if appropriate measures are not taken, the world may go into a global recession.

He advised the government to provide measures to stabilise the Nigerian economy, measures such as removal of fuel subsidy, curtailing recurrent expenditure, pursuing the privatisation programme, avoiding the raising of Euro Bonds and efficient port services. These are in addition to other interventions necessary  in order to avoid a recession in the country.

He said:  “Nigeria’s revenue was about N4 trillion last year and we spent N1.9 trillion on fuel subsidy, which was almost 50%. We can generate more revenue from taxation by widening the tax base to capture more people, as well as exploiting the privatisation programme to raise revenue. We also need an efficient port to move goods in and out quickly. This will help the economy grow faster.”

Akintola also recommended that the government should strategically cut down cost on recurrent expenditure, which currently stands at about 80% of the country’s income. Similarly, he encouraged Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to source their materials locally in order to boost the economy.

He further advised the government against borrowing, “This is not the time to raise euro bonds, we need to focus on concessionary money, that we can earn at two to three per cent,” he said.

Vinod Madhavan

Head of Trade

Standard Bank

The Covid-19 outbreak is set to significantly impact trade growth for the year as countries limit physical movement to curb the virus spread. While the health crisis undoubtedly has vast negative implications for global trade processes, it is one that could be turned into an opportunity as it provides the political and social impetus to accelerate trade digitization on a larger scale.

Trade services have traditionally centred around physically intensive processes involving the likes of paperwork, signatures and frequent manual data entries. Infact, it has been estimated that up to 15 per cent of the cost of shipment is paperwork in global trade. In the current environment of Covid-19 related lockdowns, many of these processes that work to facilitate cross-border and international trade have been impacted and may temporarily have been rendered obsolete to a certain degree.

Existing technological solutions are available for logistics and trade.

Rapidly implementing them out of necessity from the current environment will be an excellent step in the right direction for trade digitization. This however requires collaborative approach between governments and industries to remove barriers by amending and aligning regulatory frameworks.

In many of the 20 countries in which Standard Bank operates, there are stringent and specific requirements around the roll-out of digital solutions.

Some of the countries have taken market-appropriate approaches towards moving to digitizing trade. In certain places on the continent, if one wants to issue a guarantee, for example, the standard is to issue on a physical piece of paper.

While the core nature of trade is unlikely to fundamentally change in the near to medium term, future-financial institutions are on a journey to streamline these processes, very often through leveraging the ABCD (artificial intelligence, block-chain, cloud computing and data analytics) of disruptive technologies.

From the point of view of adoption of robotics/intelligent automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in trade business processing, Standard Bank has had good success in South Africa and Uganda. Ghana is not far behind in adoption. Purely by leveraging this technology, one could materially quicken up the issuance of a local guarantee, reducing the time taken to issue a guarantee, for example, by 80 per cent.

If we take it a step further and combine AI with Optical Character Recognition (OCR),we can bring increased operational efficiencies to the areas of manual document sorting and data entry, starting the journey of reducing the manual nature of trade processes.

Such technologies allow for banks to take documentation needed to validate a transaction (sometimes 50-100 pieces of paper) and evaluate or validate that documentation against the letter of credit instrument in a much shorter time period.

Standard Bank partnered with Traydstream – a fintech that leverages OCR and machine learning – in 2019 to digitize the current manual process of checking the document against the Letters of Credit for Discrepancies.

The OCR tech allows for us to get a response to a document within less than an hour in some of Standard Bank’s markets. The typical validation process could take anywhere between three to five days, in fact the international banking norms, allows for five working days for this activity to take place.

Importantly, the machine learning system will continue to learn and evolve over time improving on its benefits. It also offers value-added services such as shipping vessels tracking, which is particularly useful for our clients who are importing from around the world.

A theme that is evident currently is a desire for quantum change. Trade has traditionally been paper based; with the document of title, such as Bill of Lading (BL) being the cornerstone of trade. Even there, those who were previously hesitant to accept an electronic bill of lading, for example, are now ready to embrace and adopt the technology for its benefits. The impetus that the virus has brought to trade digitization should therefore not be underestimated.

While initiatives focusing on adoption of electronic bill of lading (or e-bills) have been around for about 10 years and adopted reasonably successfully in some developed markets, the adoption of the same in markets in Africa has been intermittent. Without the legal and regulatory framework required to support the technology, the adoption cannot be on a mass scale.  The impact of courier company’s inability to deliver trade documents to banks timeously -would have been mitigated, if e-bills had been adopted in our markets.

Another area that requires focus from regulators in our markets, is to create an atmosphere allowing industry to embrace cloud computing.

Standard Bank is currently in conversations with multiple regulators, exploring how we could go about amending regulations, even though it may be a temporary dispensation for the duration of Covid-19, to facilitate digital trade. These engagements are happening in multiple markets across our network. With the challenges brought about by the virus outbreak, there is now an exciting dialogue in markets that will help to influence some of the necessary changes.

It is hoped that by leveraging basics such as digitized signatures and documents and technological innovations such as data analytics, AI and automation to change and improve the way local and international trade is done today, we can reduce friction in the trade process, boost activity and through doing so, help to reduce the impact from reduced global trade, brought about by the global health pandemic.

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Debtors Africa – an independent searchable database of recalcitrant and delinquent debtors in Africa was launched into the market today, in addition a Debtors Report – a comprehensive analysis of the Debt/Non-Performing Loans Situation in the Nigerian Banking Industry was also presented for information.

The report which was done in partnership with Proshare represents a culmination of a detailed review of the credit experiences of local Nigerian banks in the last two decades and reveals the challenges of a local lending cycle that has seen lenders become victims of the tyranny of bad and delinquent debtors.

The report makes a case for a new approach to the lending cycle to ensure that integrity, professionalism and evidence-based best lending practices are strictly followed to guarantee the sustainability of the financial system and the prosperity of the larger economy.

Key highlights of the report include:

• The Industry & its Debt Position
• Definition of a delinquent debtor and how this has changed over the years including how banks end up with bad debtors
• The Sectors & Regions affected & Impact on GDP
• Provisions of the law as regards credit collection and recovery in Nigeria
• The AMCON approach, lessons learnt, and the way for banks to adopt a revised credit recovery framework
• Case Study of approaches adopted in recovering debt; and
• Fresh methods a New Approach offers to banks troubled by delinquent debts

Ecobank Nigeria has reiterated that its agency banking scheme, also known as Xpress Points, is building entrepreneurs and pushing financial inclusion to the large unbanked and under-banked population in Nigeria.

The Ecobank Xpress Point enables eligible Agents to carry out financial transactions on behalf of Ecobank and earn commission on every transaction  processed. The consumer experience is very good as customers can do simple deposit, payment and transfers in their own neighbourhood rather than travel for hours to a bank branch. Ecobank Xpress Points is also a channel that can be used for the deployment of national social intervention programmes of the Government.

The aim of the Xpress Point is to let every Nigerian and household have access to Ecobank services within their neighbourhood to provide easy banking services.

Speaking in Lagos, Nike Kolawole, Head, Agency Banking, Ecobank Nigeria, said unemployed and retired persons should avail themselves the opportunity to earn extra income by keying into services offered by the bank as Xpress point agents. According to her, the Ecobank Xpress point which are in various neighbourhoods across the country, are well positioned to facilitate basic financial transactions, with the process and services simplified to attend to a broad spectrum of the society.

She further disclosed that agency banking in general, brings about economic and youth empowerment by way of job creation and earning extra income, adding that small savers can easily do their savings at home or near their home. This leads to financial inclusion of the under-banked in the country.

For now, Ecobank has over 43,000 agents across Africa. The agents carry out financial transactions on behalf of Ecobank and earn commission per transaction processed. Xpress Points can also be used as a channel for the deployment of national social intervention programmes, especially at this time that we are fighting the impact of lockdowns due to the COVID-19.”

Kolawole listed the services offered by the Xpress point agents as; cash in, cash out, fund transfer, bills payment, airtime recharge, remittance and account opening, among others. She added that the services are available for “sole proprietors, partnerships, co-operative societies, microfinance banks, companies with large distribution network – like petrol stations, FMCGs, telecommunication companies, super agents, aggregators and unregistered businesses such as petty traders, hair salon and others.”

Ecobank boasts of a bouquet of digital channels comprising solutions aimed at delivering convenient, accessible and reliable financial services. For instance, users of the bank’s USSD code, *326# carry out transactions without paying session charges.

The USSD platform, *326#, makes it possible to open an Xpress account and Xpress Save account instantly. The bank’s mobile banking app, Ecobank Mobile offers the option of generating a virtual card; this comes in handy as customers are continually turning to web payments for their shopping and payments.

The Ecobank virtual card offers the flexibility and convenience of creating a shopping card that is not linked to a customer’s account but is fully capable of carrying out online payments. The virtual card can also be shared with loved ones as a gift card for their own shopping.

57 trainees, who represent batch seven set of graduates being absorbed into Ecobank Nigeria as full time employees  were last week hosted to a virtual graduation ceremony by the Ecobank Academy – the first of its kind by the bank in Nigeria as it positions itself as a high quality employer ready for the opportunities of a post-COVID19 lockdown.

In attendance were notable personalities including the Registrar/Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Seye Awojobi; Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan; Group Executive, Human Resources, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Yves Mayilamene; Head, Human Resources, Ecobank Nigeria, Kunle Adewuyi and several others including the 57 graduands who joined the ceremony from various locations within and outside the country.

In his comment, the Managing Director, Patrick Akinwuntan reaffirmed the commitment of Ecobank to continue to invest in young Nigerians to boost its high quality labor force in order to better serve its customers in a convenient and accessible manner particularly as the nation rebounds from the COVID19 lockdown.

He added that Ecobank had invested in a robust technology-based model which positioned it to cope with current and future challenges including provision of convenient digital banking services to customers in a seamless manner across 36 countries on the African continent.

CIBN Registrar/Chief Executive, Seye Awojobi, said the initiative of the bank to host the event digitally is pacesetting for the industry. He commended the bank for the high premium placed on training and building the competencies of its workforce.

“The CIBN is quite impressed with the importance Ecobank attaches to training of new hires and capacity building of its staff. I have lost count of how many graduation events I attended at the state of the art Ecobank Academy last year. This is certainly the way to grow the bank and the industry to meet up with global standards. I advise the graduands to display high level of integrity. One of the truest test of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised. You should be ready to give your best to the bank that hired and trained you and thereby contributing your quota to the growth of the industry.”

Speaking further, the Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan encouraged the graduands to remain ethical and diligent in the delivery of the vision of the bank to become the most preferred financial services payments brand in Nigeria to support the economic development of households and growth of trade, manufacturing and commerce in Nigeria and Africa.

Welcoming the graduands formally to the bank, Acting Head, Human Resources, Ecobank Nigeria, Kunle Adewuyi said the bank offers an enabling and conducive environment for staff to excel to the highest level, adding that its reward system remains a motivating factor for high performance and productivity.

He explained that the Ecobank Graduate Trainee program is an intensive one year of in-depth training for fresh graduates, aimed at equipping the participants who may be coming from non-financial and banking related academic backgrounds with the necessary skill set and knowledge required to work in the banking and finance industry.

Adewuyi noted that the graduation involving 57 trainees, which took place digitally due to the Coronavirus pandemic, was the first ever virtual graduation to be held in the history of the academy. He enjoined them to remain focused and apply themselves uniquely in their different roles.

Group Executive, Human Resources, ETI, Yves Mayilamene advised the graduands to be fully committed to their growth, as well as the overall growth of the organisation.

Ecobank Nigeria has encouraged its customers to obey the COVID-19 rules,  emphasizing the importance of social distancing to check the spread of the Coronavirus, especially when visiting the branches.

The bank which gave this advice in a mail to customers also thanked them for their dedication and continued patronage while confirming that more branches are being opened to decongest those already opened for business since the easing off of lockdowns across the country.

Responding to media enquiries in Lagos, Head of Branch Network, Ecobank Nigeria, Titiloye Olarinde  said  Ecobank takes the safety of customers  and staff very seriously and has therefore put in place measures to ensure they are safe when they visit the branches.

According to her, temperature checks and wearing of masks are compulsory for both staff & customers before admittance to any bank premises; provision and mandatory use of hand sanitizers before accessing the branch or ATM Gallery while regular deep cleaning of work surfaces and ATM areas is ensured.

She also stated that only 5 customers are allowed into the banking hall at a time and appealed for cooperation with security personnel as their actions are all in a bid to keep everyone safe.

“We are operating in line with the health and safety guidelines issued by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. With the opening of additional branches, we are able to meet customers’ needs in a safe and conducive environment.  Key services available at our branches include ATM services, assistance to onboard to our Digital platforms, account opening and over the counter services for essential cash and cheque transactions.  For your safety and comfort, we encourage you to continue using our 24/7 digital self-service solutions such as Ecobank Mobile App, Ecobank Online, EcobankPay, Ecobank OmniPlus, Omni Lite and the RapidTransfer App thus supporting initiatives to help curtail the spread of COVID-19. At Ecobank, we take the safety of our staff and customers very seriously and have therefore put in place measures to ensure your safety should you need to visit our branches”. She noted.

Ecobank Nigeria has being in the forefront in supporting the public and government since the commencement of the fight against  COVID-19.  The bank had initiated various public enlightenment on radio and social media, having launched the #StaySafeNigeria campaign, to educate the public about the virus and ways to curb its spread.

Ecobank has also partnered with many State Governments to provide palliatives and relief packages to indigent people. This is in addition to the bank’s contribution as a Corporate member of the Bankers Committee and the Nigerian Private Sector led Coalition to raise funds against COVID-19, being part of  the bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities.