NATURE OF BANKING SERVICES IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCAION

1.1   BACKGOUND OF THE STUDY

The nature of banking services in the last few decades has made itself felt in almost every phase of human activity.  The changes which have occurred in recent years in the environment respecting demands of customers for bank services in enough justification for reviews and changes in the method of banking procedures.  I must first of all like its to realize that a new era has been born in the role of banking services in Nigeria. Sometimes in the past, it was fashionable for bankers to confine themselves to the fore walls of the bank expectation business to come to them.  No wonder then the traditional view as summed up along ago by George Rare had this to say: “…….it is for its customers to come to the bank, and not for the bank to go to them…. The Manager has to be so much a fixture in the office, during the business desks or the bank counter, we as banker, must be sensitive to changing public demand and aspiration whether they are desire to obtain improved services or new ones.

The concept of product life cycle, evident in other industries should be allowed is pride of place in banking industry as well.  Fresh and tempting products must be introduced, but equally, it must be expected that service will be removed form the range from time to time as and when the situation warrants.  The fact remains that bank services nature must be sold just like any other nature product. It is the view of some people and correctly too that the introduction of the word nature changes the operational zone of the banker just as every other natural thing takes up a metamorphose changes.  We need to bring to light the differences between the modern bank manager status in the apron of a salesman and the old fashioned transfer who are yet to realize that the nature of bank services is now a case of the buyer’s own lot and not the seller, who only sells out when business only comes to him in the office.  Thus, whatever, services and special skills or strengths a bank possesses there is needed to advertise the name of the bank and the services it can render to the public.

1.2    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The efficient nature of bank services is indispensable if economic development becomes a must.  This work is therefore aimed at studying the staff – client relationship with special emphasis on how this relationship affects their performance in such areas as courtesy, prompt attention to clients, professional guidance and communication.

(a) COURTESY:  This is the act of being polite and accommodating in all dealing of staff with customers.  The staff should render to use the right choice of words, as carelessness and uncooperative attitude will leave the customer unsatisfied.

(b) PROMPT ATTENTION TO CLIENTS:  Bankers should attend to their customers with minimum delay.  Long queues in banks are not ideal to the nature of our banking services and should be curbed.

(c) COMMUNICATION:  The need for an efficient communication system for easy transfer of money, clearing of cheques and contact with customers when desired etc cannot be over emphasized

(d) PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE:  This is the area the banker are expected to exhibit their professional competence.  For a banker to be able to advice competently, on whether to invest or not the should not limit his appraisal of the customers performance to an – examination of the historical balance sheet alone, as some people still do.  This has come for us to be conversant with such things as budgets, cash flow forecast, overhead allocation, costing, capital budgeting etc.

1.3 PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The following reasons are the statement of objective.

*Considering the invaluable help the efficient nature of diverse bank services and be to our economic development banks should not be left to be infested with surmountable problems, which hinder their performance.

*Customers can exist without banks but banks cannot function without customers.  Thus the objective of this research is to show clearly, the place of bank customers in the continued existence of banks in operation and the staff is secured employment.

*It is a well recognize maxim in the nature of banking services that the customer is always right how far have the banks been able to live up to the demand of this maxim.  It cannot be disputed that to establish peoples bank; customer satisfying service be comes highly necessary.

*Our commercial banks are accused of gross inefficiency.  Given that there are some endogenous causes are there some exogenous contributory factors to this poor performance of our banks.

All these and others are the questions the researcher is interested in finding out solution to.

1.4   SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY

The study is significantly shown as follows

*It is my considered opinion that the quality of our banking services are naturally not adequate, and certainly not close to the standard obtainable in most developed countries.

*Some of the causes for these poor services are not inherent in the nature of banking industry but should be blamed on the underdeveloped state of some countries’ economy, especially in Nigeria.

*Our commercial banks are still operating on the Orthodox system of banking only but a few have gone a little bit legend.  This means that they are tradition oriented and adhere strictly to set out rules.  Unlike the unorthodox system of banking obtainable in the United State of America.