Staff of Intercontinental Bank are now on the edge of their seats following a new productivity arrangement which compels them to perform or be sanctioned with pay cut or outright dismissal. Some members of staff of the bank have reportedly lost their jobs, over inability to meet deposit targets which they describe as unrealistic.

A memo from the company's group chief Executive, Erastus Akingbola dated December 24, 2007 and titled 'Amendment To Policy On Deposit Mobilisation' told the staff, particularly those of the service and marketing departments that for every month that they fail to achieve up to 60% of monthly deposit target N5,000 will be deducted from their salaries monthly.

Any service department staff who fails to achieve the said target N2,500 will be deducted from his/her salary.

If they fail to meet the target for the second month the amount debited to their account will be N10,000 for marketing staff and N5000 for service staff. For the third, the amount to be deducted from their salaries will rise to N15,000 and N7,500 respectively.

They will face suspension if they fail to meet the said target after three months.

Akingbola told his workers that any non-borrowing current account that records no activity in a month, the account officer (marketing officer) will be debited N1, 000 per account, while if the account is not tagged to an officer, the Branch head will be debited as appropriate.

Any marketing officer that allows an account being managed by him/her to go dormant will be debited N10,000monthly until the account is re-activated.

If the account is not tagged to officer, the branch head will be debited as appropriate, except in cases where it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that the customer cannot be re-marketed such as due to death, relocation etc.

For regions where more than 50% of staff are sanctioned on deposit related matters, the RBEs will each be debited N10, 000 monthly while after the third month, the RCEs will be debited N20,000

Akingbola said that the measure was necessary to stem the worrisome situation where the total deposit position of the bank month on month is running short of its planned monthly deposit target.

"The negative variance in our deposit position is attributed to the fact that staff are not marketing our various deposit liability products and thus not meeting their targets. In addition, some account officers do not exert proper relationship management skills with their customers.

"As such, most accounts under their management do not witness any activity for months and some become dormant after six (6) months.

"To engender a consistent and sustainable growth in our bank wide deposit position, the following will now apply effective January 2, 2007" Akingbola said in the memo.

Staff of the bank have criticised the position of the management as high-handed and excessive aggression to win business.

"A number of factors can bring about a dormant account or make deposits low in coming. To go by the new rule is to give the impression it is entirely dependant on the staff and is therefore unjustified" said a staff of the bank on condition of anonymity.

The bank's media relations manager John Omachonu who promised to respond to the matter after consultation with his office failed to do so by the close of work on Friday.

But the apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria, whose duty it is to regulate banks and enforce ethics, said through its spokesman, Festus Idoko that as private sector operators banks have the right to set targets for their staff within the limits of what they (the management of the financial institution) consider as realistic and good measure of staff productivity.

Idoko said it is not the job of the CBN to determine what an ambitious or unrealistic target is as such targets are tied to salaries. 'The banking sector has a way of handling such matters", he says.

Terrible affair

So Erastus is following in Jimmy of Zenith's footsteps.

hi,

Sebi na dem wanna work 4 bank so make dem no complain!
d only thing i know bank job does is make u a machine n a developing economy needs thinkers not routine workers.
until u leave banks n white collar jobs u many not know d wealth available 2 u.
4 mi, i wanna b a biz tycoon, giving my friends working in da banks 2 keep 4 mi.
bank ko,target ni

Na wa for intercontinental bank i don't know what its turning into because this was how zenith bank started,before they found themselves where the are are now.Come to think of it i Ive not heard anything on the test we did in Ibadan since November 2007.IN FACT WON FE TEEEEEEEEEEEE.

What kind of useless comment is that.What is wrong is wrong no  bettrer word to describe it.you re trying to say its rigth to do what intercontinental is doing is right,i guess you don't av any job doing now.

The staff should take the case to NLC to look into the matter

abanna:

hi,

Sebi na them want to work 4 bank so make them no complain!
d only thing i know bank job does is make u a machine n a developing economy needs thinkers not routine workers.
until u leave banks n white collar jobs u many not know d wealth available 2 u.
4 mi, i want to b a biz tycoon, giving my friends working in da banks 2 keep 4 mi.
bank ko,target ni

This bank is among the banks that will soon crash, they are not as strong as everybody thought they were. As a matter of fact i heard they have started to lay off some workers.