Customs Street Advisors

Under Cecilia Ibru, its former CEO, Oceanic Bank enjoyed a public reputation for ethics in business. However, recent revelations since her removal on August 14, 2009 by the Central Bank of Nigeria have thrown rotten eggs at that edifice.This week on Street Talking on NEXT, I argue that the real challenge before Oceanic Bank today is not merely to retain client custom, but to win back the admiration and respect it once enjoyed as the bank committed to ‘building a stronger Nigeria’.

Commitment. Goodwill. Gratitude. Loyalty. Prudence. Resilience. Stewardship. According to its current ad campaign, these foundational values, all built around institutional dependability, form the seven-fold chord that binds Oceanic Bank to its customers. The theme song of the campaign, ‘Today is a good day’, is an infectious anthem to optimism. Sensually, the campaign aces on visual and aural scores. In fact, the bank and its agency may well go on to win a clutch of awards for the campaign. Alas! This should not be a marketing campaign but an identity crusade.

For the bank whose ambition of ‘building a stronger Nigeria’ endeared it to the banking public, the clear and present mission is to regain faith where it has faltered. This should not be understood in the narrow sense of success at attracting deposits or retaining customer accounts. That would be similar to confusing hygiene with health.

Four months after the regulator moved to clear the Augean stables, claimsholders are still in shock over the disclosures of malfeasance. Although business has continued as normal in the banking halls, at a deeper level, customers, shareholders, employees and business partners privately admit that they are yet to come to terms with the scale of abuse allegedly perpetrated by the former management.

During the go-go years, while other banks held up the number of branches, bleeding edge technology, products menu and balance sheet size as their unique selling points (USPs), Oceanic Bank chose to define itself as the bank that conducted its business according to the highest ethical principles.

Long before Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, in a recent Times of London interview, described his bank’s mission as ‘doing the God’s work’, Oceanic Bank had staked its claim to banking as missionary activity. Unfortunately, the charge sheets prepared by the EFCC show that it was a canard all along.

Today, the bank is held hostage to its own lofty standards. Meeting and exceeding them will be the real metric for judging the achievements of the new management. Whatever the turnaround credentials of the John Aboh-led management team, they will mean nothing if they are applied only to fixing the bank’s finances but fail to revalidate its values.

The issue then is about much more than the guarantee of cash deposits. Stripped to the bare essentials, it is really about a guarantee of trust deposits. For Oceanic Bank customers, each of its 370 nationwide branches was, first and foremost, a trust-taking depository. Therefore, the challenge facing the new management will be how to ensure that the differentiating character of trust that sets Oceanic Bank apart does not degrade to the level where it becomes a mere cash-taking building? In a thought-provoking article, ‘How Financial Brands should market in a Recession, which appeared in the Harvard Business Journal (April 2009), John Quelch wrote that “a brand that has lost consumer trust is no longer a brand; it is merely a name.” Avoiding this fate should be the overarching strategic objective.

Stated differently, how will the new management respond to the customer question ‘why is my trust still safe with you?’ Neither the broadcast assurances of the Central Bank nor the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) will be satisfactory in this case. The Central Bank took the steps it did out of its duty to protect the broader financial system, while the NDIC is required by law to guarantee cash deposits. Legislation does not, neither can it, require the CBN or NDIC to protect the brand identity of a financial institution. For Oceanic Bank’s customers only the bank can deliver on this social contract.

The burning task before the new helmsmen is to articulate a compelling answer to these concerns. This should not be that hard to do. After all, if the seven core values are what drive the daily thoughts and actions of the bank in all its relationships then there must be literally thousands of examples from which to select from to reinforce its case.

In more buoyant times, the bank would have taken huge billboards at highway intersections and redone its branches with ambient posters and colours. This time, it has not. That is a blessing in disguise because it challenges members of the bank’s staff and management to overwhelm customers with their internalization of these seven values. This is the main thing, the rest are supporting cast.

A thousand books have been written on profit-judged business turnarounds but there are few cases of companies that have successfully pulled back from the brink of mistrust and won their way back to the hearts and minds of customers. It has to look inwards to find its way back to public affection. Can Oceanic Bank pull this off? It is damned if it doesn’t. The world is watching.

The original article may be read here on the NEXT website.

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