The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Group recently held its first ever Senior Leadership Forum reflecting the strategic importance and growth potential of its pan-African business.
UBA Group Chairman Mr. Tony O. Elumelu convened the Forum to review the impressive growth that the bank’s African network had made over the past 11 years and to provide a platform to reaffirm and embolden its strategic goals.
The Forum, which brought together 90 participants, including the entire Board of UBA, all Chairmen and all CEOs of UBA subsidiaries across Africa and the United Kingdom resolved to expand UBA’s footprint into six more Africa countries starting from the UEMOA and CEMAC regions. This will bring UBA footprint on the continent to 25 countries including Nigeria.
The forum resolved to focus on a customer service transformation initiatives to simplify its processes and shorten turnaround times for customer transactions.
Speaking on the bank’s customer transformation plans, the Group Managing Director Designate (GMD-D) Kennedy Uzoka, said “To achieve our objective of being the face of banking in Africa, we have placed the customer as the focus of our business. One of the things we consider seriously is how we serve our customers. In that sense, we have taken a practical approach by reviewing all the touch points, taking a holistic review of our processes and times for consummating transaction. We have looked and studied the best organisations in the world in the area of customer services. This is to enable us realign our processes towards serving the customers better.” At strategic level, we have looked at where we are and what UBA would be in 5 years. We have titled this project as C1st. To achieve this, we have assembled team of the best staff across Africa to chart this process.”
Commenting on the importance of consolidating pan-African financial expertise and exporting the successful Nigerian model, Uzoka said: “I have experienced the potential of our pan-African businesses. I know that we can and I commit to ensuring our leadership across Africa. The Senior Leadership Forum reaffirms UBA’s ambition to be the leading pan-African Bank across key indices – brand equity, human capital, customer service and profitability.”
In his opening remarks at the forum, Tony Elumelu said “We are one bank; the United Bank for Africa bringing together our senior leadership talent from across the continent and the distinguished leaders who chair our subsidiary businesses is a powerful demonstration of our commitment to forge one bank for Africa.”
“As long-term investors and, May I say, pioneers in pan-African commercial and investment banking, we are deeply committed to the markets in which we operate and to harnessing the potential represented by the wider African economy. Our intention is to be the leader in African financial services, and our recent transactions show this. We see clearly the potential of Africa” said Mr. Elumelu.
UBA subsidiaries operate in 19 African countries and now contribute more than 25 per cent to Group operating revenue. UBA is increasingly recognized as a strong pan-African brand, hailed for democratising banking in its countries of operation whilst participating in landmark financial transactions, including:
- A USD $315 million facility to the Government of Ghana for road projects on the strength of Road Fund levies domiciled with UBA Ghana
- A US$250 million Crude pre-payment facility for Democratic Republic of Congo-based Orion Oil representing the largest reported transaction structured by an African investment bank in 2015 involving fresh capital within the African market.
- A 234 million Euro oil and gas financing deal with Société Africaine de Raffinage (SAR) of Senegal, which underscored its capacity to fund big ticket transactions across Africa
- A USD $180 million to Delta Energy Zambia for the procurement and supply of petroleum products to marketing companies in Zambia
- A US$90m University of Dakar hostel construction project financed solely by UBA Senegal – African capital, building African infrastructure for African education
“We have done a lot but in many senses we are only beginning to reap the rewards of our network and potential. We are a truly pan-African institution and after this period of consolidation, we know that the continuing expansion of our Africa footprint is a key goal. We must ensure that we have presence in at least 25 countries in the near to medium term, starting from the UEMOA and CEMAC zones,” said Mr. Fogan Sossah, Chairman of UBA Senegal during the Forum.
In keeping with the objective of creating an institution worthy of the patronage of clients and the trust of regulators and governments, the three day forum focused on the critical issues and drivers for success across the continent. Seminars were held on Corporate Governance, Corporate Institutionalisation, Board Effectiveness, Compliance, Accountability and more.
Speaking on the breadth and depth of the Forum’s individual sessions, Mrs. Gisele Mudiay, Chairman of UBA Democratic Republic of Congo said: “! Our aspiration for the next five years is to pool knowledge of our individual operating environments and leverage that knowledge to help our customers realize their business goals.”
Other items on the agenda at the forum included Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies and compliance standards across the Group. The Group Compliance Officer Uche Ike stated that “compliance is non-negotiable. We operate as a global bank, in global centres. We have seen how swiftly internationally and within Africa banks have lost hard earned reputations through laxity in policy compliance and we will not tolerate this in UBA Group“.
The Forum coincided with the 54th Annual General Meeting of UBA(where participants were also able to celebrate the Bank’s strong financial performance) as the week long activities culminated in the dedication of staff at the annual UBA CEO awards ceremony.
UBA reported strong financial results in 2015, in what is largely recognized as a challenging macro environment. Gross earnings were N315bn whilst operating profits stood at almost N70bn. UBA Africa operations currently contribute approximately 25% of these earnings but are expected to grow significantly and over time contribute as much as 50% to overall Group profitability.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) is one of Africa’s leading financial institutions, with operations in 19 African countries and 3 global financial centres: London, Paris and New York.
From a single country operation in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, UBA has evolved into a pan-African provider of banking and related financial services, to more than 11 million customers, through diverse channels globally.
