A bank is an institution which receives surplus funds from the public, safe guard it
and give it back to their true owners on request, but part of the money which is
not given back to their owners are given to those who are in need of them and
can provide collateral security.
The need for the banking sector in any economy can not be over-emphasised. As
an institution which is responsible for financing the economy, they provide funds
required to develop the economy. As a medium through which the monetary
policy and fiscal policy of the government are implemented, they are used to
bring about changes in the economic policies of government all over the world.
The idea of banking was developed after the trade by barter system of those days
crumbled due to its inability to solve the increasing needs of the people. Banking
became a source of keeping, protecting and preserving excess funds of the
people. It also became a source through which people who do not have these
funds could make use of them to their advantage while simultaneously benefiting
the banks.
Professor G. O. Nwankwo, Femi Adekanye and others have over the years
compiled a full history of banking system in Nigeria. The first Commercial bank in
Nigeria was the African Banking Corporation which was established in coalition
with Elder Dempster and Co, a shipping company based in Liverpool in 1892 with
a branch in Lagos. They experienced some difficulty initially due to the orientation
of Nigerians then, eventually its interest was transferred to Elder Dempster and
Co. in 1 893.This brought about a new bank known as the British Bank of west
Africa (BBWA) in 1893. This was registered in London as a limited liability
company in March 1894 and the first Lagos branch was opened that same year.
Since then several other banks have been established to bring about competition
and fast development of the banking sector. It is vital to mention here that these
banks were off shoots from our colonial masters in Europe who have developed
the sector in their continent to assist them in mopping up excess funds from their
economy. The establishment of the banking sector was also to enhance, the
repatriation of the excess funds from the under developed economies like the
Nigerian economy and to establish their superiority politically and economically
over the colonised territories.
With the inability of the then government of President Ibrahim Badamasi
Babangida to properly manage the economy due to lack of funds and the need to
secure loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) a lot of
conditionalities were given as prerequisites to obtain the loan. One of such was
the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) which was implemented in 1986.
Some of the conditions of SAP includes: Trade Liberalization, Privatisation and
commercialization, Devaluation of currency, Deregulation of interest rate and so
on.
These SAP conditions brought about an economy that is open to the forces of
demand and supply to operate and this led to the licensing of more banks by the
Central Bank of Nigeria. The banks were licensed to facilitate the financial
transaction in the economy and aid the achievement of the SAP mission.
The bank under consideration in this thesis Citizens International Bank Limited
was one of the new generation banks established to compete with several
licensed banks and bring about the expected transformation in the banking
sector. It was incorporated as a private limited liability company on 22 December
1989. The bank wholly owned by indigenes has 32 Nigerian citizens who are
shareholders. As at today the bank has about 17 branches located in strategic
regions of the country. They have been able to position themselves strategically in
the banking sector with the cooperation of professionals that form the
management team. The enduring corporate culture throughout the bank and
pursued corporate strategy based on traditional banking business offered to select
customer groups and supported by superior relationship management and service
quality, in the process have earned a strong reputation for service,
professionalism and excellence in this Bank.
The objective of this thesis with Citizens Bank under consideration is to determine
whether the bank offers quality service to its customers and simultaneously reap
the gain from quality service offering. One interesting fact is that the bank seems
conscious of the most recent concept in Nigeria today called (TQM) Total Quality
Management which is a concept that encompasses the effective high quality
management that gives the best of service and at the same time reap the benefits
that goes with such high class services. Questionnaires were distributed to the
staff and personal interviews held with some of the managers. It is observed that
the bank is conscious of the concept of customer care, quality customer service
and Total Quality Management, however, there is need for the management to
introduce the 'concept' of a "MYSTERY SHOPPER" to enhance their leadership in
the industry.
It is not enough to be conscious of all the relevant concepts as above, given the
fact that the staffs are human beings who have diverse attitudes, reasoning,
behaviours and often acts irrationally. There is therefore the need for the mystery
shopper concept, which in summary implies a close monitoring of the application
of the other concepts to bring about the desired conventional objective of
customer satisfaction and profitability to the organisation.
