First Bank of Nigeria

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First Bank of Nigeria
Type	Public
Founded	1894, Re-named 1979
Headquarters	Lagos
Key people	Umaru Mutallab, Chairman
Industry	Finance
Products	Financial Services
Revenue	67 billion Nigerian Naira (2006) (about $500 million (US))
Website	firstbanknigeria.com

First Bank of Nigeria Is one of the top financial banks in Africa and one of the largest financial groups in Nigeria. First bank was the first major financial security institution founded in Nigeria. Hence the name First Bank of Nigeria. It was originally called the Bank of British West Africa as it had a regional outlook. The current chairman is Umaru Mutallab. First bank was founded by a shipping magnate as a medium of financial security and to promote the use of silver currency or money against indigenous barter in Nigeria.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Pre-independence 1.2 Post-indepedence 2 Today 2.1 Financial profile 2.2 Ratings and compliance 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-independence

The Bank was founded in 1894^[1] to cater to different sets of customers: The colonial trading companies and also the citizens of the colonies. The bank's mission originally focused on promoting currency use. According to the founder, the use of barter promoted a wide variety of medium of exchange without uniformity, leading to moral excess.^[2] A bank would guarantee security, and also a uniform standard of exchange. However, to many the bank was originally created as an institution to guarantee the financial security of British shipping and trading agencies in Nigeria. The founder Alfred Lewis Jones was a shipping magnate who originally had a monopoly on importing silver currency into west Africa through Elder Dempster. The bank acted initially as a financial security company meant to promote the use of silver currency and hence trading mostly in benefit of foreign goods. It did little lending to citizens but actually depended on the finances of citizens for deposits who had little collateral so it was hampered in its duties a financial bank.

[edit] Post-indepedence

After Nigeria's independence the bank's official outlook began to change. It had to treat its main customers better. A major initiative of the bank was to change its name from the Bank of British West Africa to the Bank of West Africa. The bank later merged with Standard Bank and was called Standard Bank of West Africa. In 1969, it was incorporated in Nigeria and called Standard bank of Nigeria. In 1979, after the government acquired shares in major expatriate banks, it was renamed First Bank. By then, the bank had re-organized it structure and had more indigenous directors than ever. After independence the bank also began to extend more credit to its main customers. Also, more citizens began to trust British banks since they there was an 'independent' financial control mechanism and more citizens began to patronize the new Bank of West Africa.

[edit] Today

[edit] Financial profile

At the end of August 2006, with assets totaling 650 billion Naira or $5 billion dollars, the bank became the most capitalized stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange with outstanding shares of about 10 billion. The bank is also the largest retail lender in the nation, while most banks gather funds from consumers and loan it out to large corporations and multinationals, the bank has created a small market for some of its retail clients.^[3]

[edit] Ratings and compliance

The company was named the best bank in Nigeria by Global Finance magazine in September 2006.^[4] The firm's auditors are Akintola Williams Deloitte & Touche (Chartered Accountants) and KPMG Audit (Chartered Accountants). The firm has solid short and long term ratings from Fitch and the Global Credit Rating Company partly due to its low exposure to non-performing loans. The firm's compliance with financial laws has also strengthened with the Economic Financial Crimes Commission giving it a strong rating.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official site