The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Oliver Alawuba, has said that the bank’s consistent investment in strengthening its digital channels have contributed to the growth of the bank as UBA is well-positioned to meet the growing demand of its customers across Africa and beyond.
Alawuba said this in Lagos during the visit of bank’s new Executives to the Nigerian Exchange Limited’s Head Office to present its Half-year 2022 financial results to the investing public.
Speaking on UBA’s driving factor over the past few years, he said, “We have invested so much in digital banking. We have great digital banking capabilities and we also have a growing customer base. Today we have over 30 million customers across various platforms and these customers are transacting. 90 per cent of our transactions are done digitally and we are looking at 95 per cent shortly. This has been helping us to ensure that we manage our cost of operations and to deliver excellent customer service to our customers overtime.”
He explained that the bank’s foray into the larger African market 17 years ago continues to yield largely for the institution, as presently, activities in the Africa market account for over 50 per cent of the banks’ profitability, with room for even more opportunities going forward.
On plans and strategy for the remaining half of the year, he said, “As it stands, UBA can lead in Nigeria and in Africa, and we the new management are here to ensure that UBA takes the leadership position in every country we operate in. We will continue to focus on the customer. We are committed to our Customer first philosophy. The customer determines what we do at every point in time and we will ensure that we do all it takes to satisfy them optimally.”
He also told the Stock Exchange of UBA’s willingness to partner with the NGX to achieve its goals of unifying Africa, adding that “We are United Bank for Africa, Africa’s global bank and I believe that we can do a lot together especially with our common interest in Africa. The other African countries look to Nigeria to play a significant role and for us at UBA, our vision and mission is intertwined with Africa.”
While welcoming the newly appointed executives to the Exchange, the Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Exchange Limited, Temi Popoola, commended the UBA Board, led by its Chairman, Tony O. Elumelu, for what he described as a well-thought out succession plan, which he said was worthy of being emulated by other companies.