Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN) Plc yesterday outlined a three-year strategic plan that will further consolidate the bank’s growth towards being Nigeria’s most reliable and trusted banking partner.
At the annual general meeting yesterday in Lagos, the board and management of the commercial bank has made commendable progress and has been positioned to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the economy.
Chairman, Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN) Plc, Mr Cyril Odu, said with the successes recorded in 2018, the bank will now focus on executing its 2019-2021 strategic objectives.
He noted that in 2018 the bank strengthened its retail and transaction banking offerings and launched the first Local Letter of Credit to support local trade as well as launched the inaugural N13.5 billion bond issue and adopted the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology, making history as the first Bank to do so in Nigeria.
According to him, the bank will over the next three years optimise its assets to deliver higher values to stakeholders, increase its digital footprints and position itself for a sustainable future.
“We have positioned Union Bank to take advantage of the emerging opportunities in the economy and remain optimistic about the future of the Bank. We will execute our 2019-2021 strategic objectives – sweating our assets, digitizing our bank, and positioning for the future – towards being Nigeria’s most reliable and trusted banking partner,” Odu said.
He said the bank would focus on embedding disciplined cost management as well as mining synergies across business segments and functions to improve the profitability of its business and deliver value to all its stakeholders including shareholders, customers, business partners and employees.
He said the bank remains confident that Nigeria has a potentially robust economy with a large consumer market, abundant natural resources and a productive population.
“2018 has been a year of good progress for our bank and we are well positioned to execute our short to medium term strategy,” Odu said.
Chief Executive Officer, Union Bank of Nigeria (UBN) Plc, Mr. Emeka Emuwa added that the priorities of the bank in 2018 were three including enhancing productivity across board; tightening up loan portfolio especially by resolving key large exposures which drove non-performing loans up significantly and optimising the bank’s capital and funding base.
“I am pleased to report that we made significant strides in each focus area. Notwithstanding a depressed economic environment and a challenging operating landscape, our efforts to optimise productivity delivered results.
In 2019, we will double-down on our productivity efforts to deliver our financial targets. We are harnessing synergies across our business segments to ensure we maximize opportunities across entire value chains, while centralising key business and operational functions for better efficiency, and prioritizing customer experience across all our touchpoints,” Emuwa said.
He outlined that the bank will seek to deepen its customer base through new customer acquisition and retention, leverage digital banking to improve sales and productivity, diversify its businesses and customers, improve operational efficiency and harness synergies across its business to maximize opportunities across its entire value chains and ecosystems.
According to him, following the successful execution of the bank’s debut local currency bond issue to raise N13.5 billion and the tightening up of its loan portfolio, Union Bank is well positioned to continue executing key business priorities in 2019 and beyond.