Access To Diamonds

The Spark | Ignite/Connect/Achieve
www.thesparkng.com
This need to grow bigger is the key reason for
the merger between his bank and Diamond
Bank.
Access Bank had built a strong wholesale
business and had in its corporate strategic
plan a goal to have a global enterprise that
would be known as Africa’s gateway to the
world. This meant that the company would be
handling payments across the continent and
increasing trade between African countries.
With a formidable trading capability through
its presence in London, India, China, Beirut,
Dubai and other parts of the far, east, the
bank turned its attention to strengthening
operations locally, dominating, and growing
bigger in the context of Nigeria.
“Our goal is to keep growing our customer
base. We can hit thirty-five million customers
in five years and keep growing to fifty, sixty
or even seventy million customers. We
would have done all the work needed to be
done and that would enable us to compete
favorably in profitability, and balance sheet
size with the South African banks.”
Fortunately, Diamond Bank was also thinking
about the same thing. He highlighted their
complementary strengths. While Access
Bank has a strong wholesale and value chain
business, Diamond Bank has a strong retail
franchise.
“We reasoned - What’s wrong with bringing
ourselves together to create a formidable
platform that would provide the basis for
getting stronger and taking a more dominant
position on the continent? And that’s the
reason for this partnership”
One of the goals of the partnership is to
increase trading activities between countries
and companies across the continent, and
technology will be one of the key factors
for growth. With the rise of more fintech
companies and the increasing activities
of telecoms companies in mobile money
solutions, we asked Herbert if he thought of
these as competition.
“We embrace change. When I tried to sell
debit cards twenty-five years ago in Nigeria,
it was impossible. But today, debit cards are
going out of fashion because people are
making payments via telephone. Cheque
leaflets are almost obsolete. We have to
reconfigure what we think about money and
the things we do. What we’ve done is to pull
our digital businesses close to us, so that if
there is any disruption, it will be coming from
us”
He said they also collaborate with the Fintech
businesses, noting that compliance issues
like KYC, anti-money laundering and other
best practices remain important to the bank
even as they seek to innovate and work on
groundbreaking technology.
“In a few years, you may be able to drop your
card and phone and make payments with
your biometrics. We already do this with our
phones. We could just configure your details
to your retina. Mankind has learned more
about itself in the past twenty years than all
of the thousand years preceding that twenty.
Things are changing fast and we are excited
to be a key player with that”
The partnership also aims at becoming
the largest retail service provider in Africa
and as such would pay key attention to
young businesses and entrepreneurs. He
gave an insight into some of the challenges
experienced by SMEs and the solutions they
already provide and are looking to provide to
this market in the coming months and years.
He began with enunciating the need
for training on things like finance and
bookkeeping and generally, building
capacity. Next to this is the lack of access to
capital, noting that most financial institutions
don’t pay attention to them. He explained
that the larger institution intends to create
a framework that would support these
businesses in a manner that is affordable.
“Training and funding many businesses at
once will be challenging and even, ineffective.
We are looking at ways to automate the
process or have them in batches”
He pointed out some of the ways they have
supported SMEs, giving the example of how
the GSM companies’ entry into the Nigerian
market created business opportunities for
young Nigerians, who were supported by
the Bank. He also noted the special attention
paid to female entrepreneurs through the
Gender Empowerment Movement in the
early 2000s which ultimately evolved to the
W Initiative, as a total package provided for
female customers.
Giving an example of how the management
capabilities of women enable them to be
excellent homemakers, he enunciated that
female entrepreneurs hold the potential
to take the economy to new levels when
provided with the needed support. He told
the story of the first move made towards
this empowerment, with a commitment to
support fifty women and take their businesses
from nothing to fifty billion Naira. The success
of this project led them to shore up efforts
and begin exploring a holistic approach to
providing female entrepreneurs and women
in general with the right support for success.
He further explained that the package was
targeted at women for various stages of
their lives, including providing assistance to
families experiencing trouble with completing
their families.
A third challenge he notes is the lack of
courage and commitment to the process on
“When we started our entrepreneurial journey in 2002, it
was clear to us that the industry was going to consolidate.
We knew that getting to where we wanted would be a
combination of both organic growth and inorganic growth.”
“Some people
do not think it is
important but I
think God needs
to order your
steps in the right
direction.”
the part of the entrepreneurs themselves. He
went on to share some of the principles that
have kept him through his entrepreneurial
journey.
The first of these, he says is “Focus. Focus.
Focus. It doesn’t matter what you do. If you
do it well, you will do well”.
“The second is competence. You have to
be knowledgeable and competent enough
to deliver what you promise. Because with
that, you’ll be able to navigate through the
difficulties that go with any entrepreneurial
endeavor. It doesn’t matter what business
you are doing, the entrepreneurial risks are
the same. To ensure success, you have to be
competent”
“The third, of course, is your confidence in
yourself and you’ll be tested several times.
And the most important is God’s, Divine
Grace. Very important. Some people do not
think it is important but I think God needs to
order your steps in the right direction.”
For someone who has spent almost three
decades in the industry, we wanted to know if
anything has challenged his resolve and how
he would describe his experience so far.
“Well. I’ve been tested in several ways but not
to the extent of having my resolve broken.
My experience has been thrilling, fulfilling,
and exciting. It is a rollercoaster but you know
what, I enjoy it.”
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