Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Alex Otti, one of Africa’s banking and economic development technocrats, has announced the launch of a tech-friendly commercial bank, Signature Bank, on Monday November 21, 2022, in Abuja.
Speaking at the official opening and commencement of operations of the bank in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, Dr Otti pointed to the almost 44 million Nigerians who have no access to financial products or are underserved as evidenced in the 2022 Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) records provided his team “a great opportunity. We believe that the individuality and uniqueness of every customer should be celebrated, just like our signatures are unique to each one of us, a commitment, a symbol of who we are. This is the essence and promise of Signature Bank.” Consequently, he added “the Bank is already working to open several locations across Nigeria, including Port- Harcourt, Aba, Sokoto, Owerri, Onitsha, Kano Enugu and in other metropolitan cities around the country. We have put in place robust, disruptive technology and digital banking channels to ensure that our customers can access all our services from the comfort of their homes, offices or at leisure.”
He offered a backgrounder that in 2017, several investors and friends considered the option of buying a bank but “decided to set up a brand new commercial bank and applied to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for a fresh banking license. In December 2021, we received an approval-in-principle from the CBN and immediately set out to redefine the industry by building a sophisticated bank that will, expectedly, operate without borders, driven by cutting-edge technology and a highly motivated workforce, offering personalized products and services that are tailored to our customers’ needs.”
He recalled that “In August 2022, the CBN approved the issuance of an operating license to our bank after a very rigorous process of verification of the sources of our capital, inspection of our systems, processes and documentation that lasted close to nine months.”
Regarding operational responsibilities at the bank, Dr. Otti said he won’t be involved in the running of the bank. He said that the new bank will benefit from the fact “we also have in place a very experienced Board led by the very brilliant former Chief Executive Officer of Shell Companies in Nigeria and current Chairman of Julius Berger (Nigeria), Dr. Mutiu Sunmonu. You can’t get any better than that.”
Dr. Sunmonu promised that their “customers will enjoy easy, accessible, borderless financial services, driven largely by digital solutions that fit their lifestyle. The goal is to give our customers the freedom to bank on the go and do business with us from anywhere, anytime, anyplace. We are setting up unique-looking branches in targeted cities across the country so that our customers can have physical touch points to experience our different brands of in-person services.”
Dr. Otti served as the Group Managing Director of the former Diamond Bank.
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