Abuja — The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved the partnership between First Bank of Nigeria Plc and the HSBC London, United kingdom, in fulfilment of guidelines for banks to hold the nation's foreign reserve. The apex bank nod for the partnership was secured at a meeting between the CBN Governor, Prof. Charles Soludo and a joint delegation of First Bank and HSBC top management officials, led by the Managing Director (MD) of First Bank, Mr. Jacob Ajekigbe, in Abuja, yesterday.

Guidelines issued by CBN on banks that desire to hold part of the nation's foreign reserves included partnership with a local bank, in the case of foreign banks, while any of the nation's 25 banks wishing to enjoy the privilege must be capitalised up to at $500 million.

"The partnership is looking good in terms of the scope. In terms of intent and focus you have got the ingredients. This is a good development in our desire to foster strong relationships between international banks and Nigerian banks.

"Go ahead and consummate the marriage. I have every confidence that this is the kind of relationship that in 10 years, will have turned into huge a huge profit for the mutual benefits of both parties and even grow into new institutions," Prof. Soludo said.

you can have a joint venture running. Something that really gets you to a much more fundamental kind of relationship rather than a loose kind of cooperative."

Prof. Soludo also urged HSBC to take advantage of the current reforms in the Nigerian economy, and particularly the banking sector to go beyond the partnership and open business in Nigeria, as according to him, the nation was grossly under-banked and therefore required more banks.

Earlier, the MD said that the partnership between his bank and HSBC included training and knowledge transfer through which his bank would enjoy hands-on strategic state-of the-art skill acquisition from their partners.

He also said that the deal would include strengthening the First Bank assets management international trade capacity.

He added that other areas of the partnership would include structuring financing architecture for export and infrastructure financing, where a lot of opportunities abound in the nation's economy.

The leader of the HSBC delegation, and Head of Corporate and Instituitional Banking, Mr. Rob McCall said that the relationship between the two organisations commenced in 1982 and that both of them had benefited immensely in the past and therefore were optimistic that the new deal would serve both business interests.