PRESS RELEASE
Intercontinental Bank’s 20th Anniversary forum begins in Kano
In appreciation of its customers in the North West region of the country, and as part of activities lined up for the celebration of its 20 th year anniversary, Intercontinental Bank Plc would kick-start its nationwide anniversary customers’ forum in Kano today (Thursday, April 2, 2009).
The first phase of the bank’s 20 th anniversary activities had started early in February with a reward gift for every customer that visited any of the bank’s branches across the country. The second phase is marked by hosting the customers to a dinner in several locations across the country in addition to high profile gift items meant for the winners of its anniversary bonanza.
According to the Group Chief Executive of Intercontinental Bank, Dr Erastus Akingbola the kick off in Kano is symbolic in that not only has the bank recorded monumental customer patronage in the region, Kano was the first location the bank established outside Lagos.
Akingbola commended the customers for their loyalty and patronage, adding that the bank would continue to offer banking services with emphasis on convenience for the customers.
Speaking to journalists in his office in Lagos, Akingbola said that the bank is appreciating all it’s customers in a reward spree tagged “Every body is a winner” with various gifts items ranging from refrigerators, plasma TV sets, DVD player, water dispensers, travel cooler bags among others.
The bank is backing up the reward spree with a jumbo anniversary promo, where 20 Toyota cars and 160 motor bikes will be given out to deserving customers. The first draw for this promo will come up later this month. All the customer needs to do to qualify for the jumbo promo, is to open an account with N5,000 and build it up to N20,000.The draws will be held in all the regions of the country and three winners are expected to emerge from each region.
Akingbola said the customers deserved all the rewards as they were instrumental to the bank’s impressive growth and achievements over the years.
“Right from inception in February 1989, we have had one of the most vibrant customer supports and patronage in the Nigerian financial sector”, Dr. Akingbola said.
Operating in its first ten years as Nigerian Intercontinental Merchant Bank Limited (NIMBL), the bank, according to a report by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1993, emerged the number one investment bank in Nigeria when it was just five years old. It had also begun building a network of subsidiaries involved in other sectors of the financial industry such as discount houses, insurance, capital market etc thus becoming a financial conglomerate in its early years.
At a time when merchant banking and commercial banking dichotomy weighed heavily against the former Intercontinental Bank was able to remain among overall top 10 banks by acquiring commercial banks to play big on both sides of the divide. And coming from the disadvantages of merchant banking into the new terrain of commercial banking where its current competitors have been playing over a decade before it, Intercontinental Bank was able to amass large retail customer base within so short a time that it did not only caught up with older institutions but actually surpassed its peers that have always enjoyed commercial banking many years before it.
In recent years, at post consolidation, Intercontinental Bank had emerged one of the top five banks in Nigeria hitting the number one position in many performance indicators. In 2007 The Banker Magazine, a subsidiary of Financial Times of London rated Intercontinental number five bank in Africa and among the top 500 in the world. It also rated the bank the second fastest growing bank in the world.
It sustained this impressive positioning such that last year The Banker in London named it "Bank of the Year (Nigeria) 2008’’, while The African Banker in association with Corporate Council of Africa declared Intercontinental Bank “African Bank of the Year 2008” in Washington DC, USA.
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EMEKA ANAETO
HEAD, CORPORATE RELATIONS & COMMUNICATION
INTERCONTINENTAL BANK PLC
