OWING to the unbounded storm in our banking industry, those seeking admission to study Banking and Finance and related disciplines in our tertiary institutions with the sole intention to ply their trade as bankers had better have a rethink. My advice is premised on two flawed assumptions: only those trained in Finance work in our banks and that there is no end in sight to the current tragedy in our financial industry. If a proper sectoral headcount is done today, the banking sub-sector boasts more of pharmacists, biochemists, and microbiologists than those in the health sector.
Let me state that my intention is not to assert that this all-comers syndrome accounts for the reason why the Nigerian Banking flag is currently flying at half mast but rather to buttress an established fact that Nigerian banks have taken the shine off almost all other sectors in terms of their share in the labour market, remunerations and flaunted ego. When sometimes ago I drilled one Carpentry and Joinery graduate of one of the Technical Colleges on his convictions and desires for applying to my bank for a job, his three-prong response threw up nerve-racking considerations: anyone can work in a bank, they are better paid and that they have prestige. As events unfold, it remains to be seen if this applicant's conviction still holds water.
For the uninitiated, the carriage now common with most bankers began with the segregation between New Generation banks and Old Generation banks in the 1990s. The arrival in the banking fold of these new business-savvy boys brought in its wake new orientation, novel marketing strategies and of course rare rewards and sanction systems. At first, it was a battle of wits among the new generation banks. In order not to be ''left behind'', the old boys tried to draw the blood thus expanding the frontier. In the ensuing war, the tactics ranged from the benign to the bizarre. As competition rages, everything is accepted while nothing is considered.
In the reckoning of those who dictate the tempo, a major arsenal to win the warfare is the material welfare of those in the battlefield. The foot soldiers and the generals were remunerated and promoted not mainly as a result of their capacity or contribution but sometimes as a potent tool in their Competitive Harassment Strategy.
We all enjoyed this era and maximised the potentials it offered. Like Footballers' agents who cook up rumours of other bigger clubs' interest in their players in order to bag an enhanced pay for their clients, bankers were quick to spread news and rumours of remuneration reviews of the other competitors to get their employers improve their working conditions (these conditions are mainly promotion and net pay and does not include training).
Where two or more elephants were fighting then, the grass did not suffer as bankers could get two or more salary reviews and promotions in one financial year. It was a period of bountiful harvest for bankers when they had the financial muscle to outspend their contemporaries in other fields.
Time has changed! If the much-talked global credit crunch has slowed down our excursion into the journey of the unknown, then the recent Full Disclosure Regime has deflated our stuffed ego. My doctor friend that once regretted ''wasting'' seven years in the university instead of studying Music and work in a new generation bank called me last week to inform me that he now appreciates his profession because he is not under pressure.
It is now an open secret that instead of having incessant upward reviews in salaries; Remuneration Restructurings, pay cuts and outright stoppage are the regular variables in the reaction equations of most banks management to the changing times. The strain in our pockets has weakened our social and purchasing powers such that bankers now default in their obligations to their dependents and even creditors. If remunerations and promotions issues are the only worries that confront bankers, then the problem is controllable. Job security is now a bigger headache for most bankers. This is an ailment that will certainly make the best of panadol extra look so ordinary. Bankers are under intense pressure to recover the loans they either guaranteed or approved. The aggregate portfolio is not only disturbing but alarming. Apart from the much-hyped exposures to the Capital market, Oil and Gas and Telecommunications sectors, the lending to the retail end of the market runs into several billions of naira.
For every error of judgment committed by a board of directors, there are millions of similar errors committed by officials at Branch and Regional levels. The direct consequence of this is that for every sacked Director, there could be hundreds of Marketing Executives and Managers that have their fate hanging in the air. A director may know almost all the major players in the Nigerian economy who benefited from the huge doubtful and bad loan facilities but I doubt if he knows the Ibrahims, Okechuckwus, Akins and Bartholomews who have borrowed for their small businesses from various branches and subsidiaries. Majority of these unsecured lendings have gone bad with the attendant unsavoury implications. I'm not a prophet of doom but I suspect more hardship may beckon on these officials as top managements will leave no stone unturned to have better and healthier balance sheets.
Their responses will clearly exemplify the parable of the bird on the storm-disturbed tree. As the saying goes, a perched bird enjoys only a stationary tree. As the heat is turned on the top executives of the consoludoted banks, the staff at the lower wrung of the ladder would sure have their comfort waived for the time being. There will be more work loads, pay cuts, suspensions and termination of appointment for some of these professional bankers.
Just as shareholders could not save the replaced Managing Directors, Mr Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Risk Manager is not ready to save the neck of most bankers who have their jobs on the line. The bankers' banker has promised to be relentless in his determination to have a sound and safer financial system. Whether the approaches adopted so far are the best that could guarantee the realisation of his objectives are issues for other days.
The various actions and pronouncements of the central banker have been summarily termed a ''welcome development'' by those who are not even ready to welcome Law Enforcement Agencies into their business premises for the recovery of the bogus outstanding obligations. While the concern of the Central Bank is to have Happy Customers, the apex bank is not pushing for Happy Banks at all. Sanusi's well publicised statement that his job is not to make anybody happy is not only directed at shareholders and stakeholders; bankers seem to be the main intended addressees of the Apex bank's raw deal letter.
The new face of leadership recently unveiled at the behest of the Central Bank is not designed for bankers to experience peace as the action has caused almost all of our deposit money banks to now be wrongly viewed as small, weak and unreliable. Those envying bankers should not knock on the door let alone come in, as Bankers can't walk tall anymore.
* Adeniyi, a banker, lives in Ibadan.
