Anas A. Galadima
2 August 2007
Access Bank has unveiled its plans to become a top three player in the domestic ban-king industry by 2012. The bank's Chief Executive Officer Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede who spoke during the bank's investors forum in Abuja recently, said that the bank was putting together the capital structure required to fund its growth and develo-pment, so as to achieve the desired top three position by the year 2012.
Mr. Aig-Imoukhuede revealed that the Bank's capital structure strategy is being implemented in three phases, the first being the iss-uance of a $50 million conv-ertible loan stock targeted at direct foreign investments while the second phase was the issuance of a $100 million local currency redeemable convertible bond. The final stage of the strategy is the on-going public offer through which the bank aims to raise a minimum of N70 billion.
He stated, "As we have successfully concluded the first two phases of our capital structure strategy, we are now moving on with the third phase which is the raising of tier one capital through a public offer of the bank's shares."
He said that the offer pro-ceeds will provide financing for the bank's growth objec-tives which will be both orga-nic and inorganic. This gro-wth will involve a massive roll out of branches both in the domestic and international markets, improvement in information communication technology (ICT) platforms, deployment of more electr-onic banking channels as well as roll out of automatic teller machines (ATMs). The Bank would also seek to deepen its wholesale business.
Mr. Aig-Imoukhuede also discussed the Bank's aggre-ssive retail banking agenda, which it is pursuing in conj-unction with ING Bank of the Netherlands for the impleme-ntation of a world class retail banking operation in Nigeria. ING Bank is one of the world's most successful retail banking operators. Industry watchers are of the opinion that lever-aging on the globally ackno-wledged competence and expertise of ING Bank, Access Bank will in no time become an industry leader in the retail business in Nigeria.
Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imouk-huede, stated that Access Bank's retail business consti-tutes an integral part of its strategy to be a dominant force in the Nigerian banking landscape. The Bank has intr-oduced a suite of sophist-icated and world-class retail banking product offerings that is radically transforming the way banking has been operated in the country. With the support of Access Bank, Nigerian consumers can now rise to higher levels of succ-ess, accomplishment and fulfillment.
Recently, the bank emerged as one of the first Nigerian banks to commence issu-ance of VISA credit cards and has rolled out several ATMs which accept VISA domestic and international cards. The bank has also been awarded the Foreign Reserve Management mandate in partnership with ABN AMBRO.
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