The decision of federal government to commercialise the Federal Savings Banks is a laudable step towards the over all commercial polity of this administration.
The removal of the restriction on the bank is commendable in that it would enable the bank venture int other areas outside its traditional development bank role.
According to the managing director of the bank, the Federal Savings Bank was granted licence to operate both specialised and commercial banking by the federal government.
The licence which came into effect on September 10, ths year now remove the bank from its dependence on government.
The bank will now operate as an autonomous body. This to a large extent will make the bank more responsive to the need of customers as it is now out of the fang of the civil services. The commercialisation is also significant for the fact that the bank will now join others in performing full banking operation. Federal Savings Bank had been a viable organisation ever since particularly as the oldest specialised banking institution in the country.
According to the managing director of the bank Mr. Akpieye, the long exclusion of the bank from the customary more lucrative areas of banking were the main reasons for the unfortunate decline the banks ability to mobilise deposits.
Now that the bank has been given licence to operate such vital customer services it is expected tht the bank will join others in the profit race. The commercialisation of the bank would now eliminate the problems in its ability to mobilise greater deposits. The bank’s new status will positively enhance its ability to pursue prime saving activities more effectively and extensively.
The fact that the bank operates several savings schemes exclusively for young persons, is an open expression of the bank’s belief that the cultivation of savings habit at a young and impressionable stage in individuals’s growth, helps greatly in establishing a firm foundation for a responsible, disciplined and thrifty disposition in adult life.
In the words of the bank chief executive, Mr. Akpieye the bank has spend a couple of million naira on re-orgnisation in anticipation of the bank’s diversification into full commercial banking. This of course, is expected to re-orientate staffers who have been hitherto civil service minded. The bank re-organisation will enable it cope adequately with future increase in the size and need of is clientele.
