By Ugo Aliogo and Gloria Onoja
Some operators of businesses in the country have appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to relax some of its regulations in the banking sector.
They also stressed the need to bring stakeholders together in order to understand their challenges.
Speaking at the ‘Meeting of Minds,’ with the theme: “What Nigeria banks should do differently,” organised by BRANDish, a media outfit, the Chief Executive Officer, Proshare Nigeria Limited, Femi Awoyemi, said the central bank should review regulations that are affecting operators in the banking sector negatively.
He noted that in India, emphasis is always placed on improving the ease of doing business, which he said the CBN should also adopt.
He also called on the CBN to intensify efforts to improving cyber security in the sector, by putting measures in place to work with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to find out ways of improving mobile payment.
“When people begin to do business within themselves such as business to business, business to consumers, consumers to consumer, then changes would have to occur.
“The CBN should investigate and research, look at all the issues surrounding these things and begin to create a path,” he noted.
Awoyemi explained that regulation normally lags behind business practices, therefore when business moves forward, then regulation comes behind.
According to him, regulations usually anticipate what would likely happen.
In her remarks, the President of Consumer Advocacy Forum of Nigeria (AFON) Ms. Sola Salako, stated the need for banks to provide more support to micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.
Salako added banking is based on trust, arguing that such trust seems to have been completely eroded in the industry.
“We need the banks to rebuild the trust. If we are going to grow an economy that everyone can be confident about, it cannot be only about the satisfaction of the bank. The banks are not acting like corporate citizens of Nigeria.
“In most developed countries, the banks help the local community where they operate. The local banks give out sponsorships and scholarship as a form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). But we don’t see or get any in Nigeria,” she opined.
