Bankers Urged to Imbibe Ethics, Professionalism

The President/Chairman of Council, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Prof. ‘Segun Ajibola has stressed the need for bankers in the country to adhere to ethics and professionalism in the industry.

The CIBN boss said this during the 2016 Fellowship Investiture of the institute held in Lagos recently.

Ajibola said on the part of the institute, in the bid to further entrench ethics and professionalism in the sector, the CIBN has been collaborating with the Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure that all bank workers attested to and adhere strictly to the Code of Conduct in the Nigerian Banking Industry.

“For instance, the conduct of some members, are currently being investigated while a member who was found guilty of violation was deregistered,” he disclosed.

According to him, there is no gainsaying the fact that the economic indicators in the country are already stretched as inflation rate remained at a stubbornly high level of 17.9 per cent as at the end of September, 2016, the highest since October, 2005.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) officially announced the country’s plunge into recession in August 2016 after two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reviewed downward the 2017 growth prospects for Nigeria by 0.5 per cent. The pressure on foreign exchange still persists in spite of government and regulatory institutions’ efforts aimed at addressing it with the naira exchanging to a dollar at $465.

In addition, the level of non-performing loans (NPL) rose to 11.7 per cent from 5.3 per cent this year, exceeding the prudential limit of five per cent and resulting in a muffled low growth in the banking industry.