Nigerian Bank Nigeria CBN Central Bank Of Nigeria – Tension Rises In Banks As More Job Cuts Loom

Source: Thisdayonline, Feb 22, 2012

Palpable fear has gripped workers in the banking industry following the recent rationalisation of workers by management of some of the banks that had completed their mergers and acquisition process. THISDAY gathered on Monday, that workers of First City Monument Bank Plc (FCMB) and Sterling Bank Plc have been apprehensive due to the rationalisation exercise that had taken place in two other commercial banks that had gone into similar business combination agreement.

While FCMB had acquired FinBank, a former rescued bank, Sterling Bank had also acquired Equitorial Trust Bank Limited, another rescued bank, to pave way for the recapitalisation of the two banks.
In fact, reliable industry sources said that both banks have concluded plans to relieve some workers in the new entity of the appointment.

But the Group Head, Corporate Communications, FCMB, Mr. Kenny Aliu, denied the report, saying that the new entity was focused on how to serve its customers better. Aliu, who spoke in a telephone chat with THISDAY, said: “If you have been following the deal, you will recall, it was only two weeks ago that we completed the acquisition and we are now in the process of integration. Our ambition is to fully merge the two banks by the end of June.

“Our priority now is to communicate the growth opportunities in these deals to our customers, staff and other stakeholders. For us, it is to unlock the value it provides for our staff as well as the enhance opportunity of growth for the bank. For us, any information you here about sack is a rumour and is completely mischievous.”

A source at the corporate affairs department of Sterling Bank, who pleaded anonymity, also denied the report. According to him, the bank only terminated the appointment of about 20 workers in the course of the integration as at December last year and has no plans to further sack workers. THISDAY had reported that as part of the integration of Access Bank and Intercontinental Bank after the acquisition of the latter, the management of Access had relieved a total of 1,100 staff from both banks.

It was also gathered that Ecobank Nigeria had terminated the appointment of about 700 of its workforce following the completion of its business integration with Oceanic Bank while it was also gathered that the appointment of about 4,000 outsourced workers of the bank had also been terminated. In the same vein, the recent introduction of a performance based compensation system at Enterprise Bank Limited (EBL) had also led to the termination of the appointment of about 140 staff whose performance were said to have fallen below the satisfactory level of the bank.

Nigerian Bank Nigeria CBN Central Bank Of Nigeria