First Bank of Nigeria Limited has promised its stakeholders that it will optimally maximise the opportunities from the disruptions occasioned by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the economy to their advantage.
Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, FirstBank, Chief Executive Officer, gave the assurance on Thursday at the bank’s Virtual Corporate Customers forum webinar.
During the forum, which had the theme Navigating the Financial Impact of COVID-19 – Business Leaders’ Role in Finding a ‘New Normal’, Adeduntan said that the bank would continue to leverage the changes to reduce cost of doing business.
“COVID-19 is giving business leaders an opportunity to rethink on an established wisdom.
“It is a major crisis that we need to deal with and we must change it from a bad to good crisis. It offers an opportunity to reinvent our business. We have to think without the box,”Adeduntan said.
According to him, the bank is looking at several opportunities to do things differently to achieve desired result.
Speaking on the topic ‘Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Nigeria Financial Sector’, the FirstBank CEO said the pandemic had put significant pressure on revenue and profits of commercial banks.
He explained further that the banking industry was witnessing more stringent interest rates, higher foreign exchange funding cost and concerns on level of foreign reserves, among others.
While enumerating the challenges brought by the pandemic, the bank chief revealed that COVID-19 had led to uptick in the level of non-performing assets and increase in the level of cyber attacks due to migration to digital channels.
However, Adeduntan assured customers that the bank would overcome the pandemic, having been in existence for the past 126 years. He based this assertion on the fact that FirstBank was already in existence when the first pandemic of 1918 occurred.
“It weathered it and would still shake off COVID-19 pandemic. Our customers are right in there at the centre of our business,” Adeduntan boasted.
He said that the bank had unveiled enhanced palliative measures to help its customers and Nigerians through the times of COVID-19 lockdown.
According to him, the bank has introduced moratorium to give customers more time to repay their loans.
On his part, the Group Executive, Treasury & Financial Institutions, FirstBank, Ini Ebong, said that collapse of oil price, oil price war, COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdown affected the foreign exchange market.
Ebong explained that the foreign exchange market was under immense pressure due to exit of portfolio investors and that the demand for dollars was heightened due to collapse of oil price and Coronavirus pandemic.
He, however, expressed confidence that the steps taken so far by the federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to support the economy would bring back liquidity.
“If we create a good conducive environment, portfolio managers will still come back to our market,” he said.
Wole Obayomi, Partner, KPMG, while speaking on the topic ‘Tax Advisory: Market Disruptions’, said tax was part of life. He noted that no country had cancelled tax payment because of COVID-19.
Instead, he advised that corporates should ensure payment of tax as and when due to reduce tax bills in form of penalties.
“The corporate society could engage tax authorities for payment extension if they forsee late payment due to the global pandemic,” he added.
Obayomi also called on the federal government to suspend the new Value Added Tax increase to 7.5 per cent till 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Also speaking, the Group Head, Corporate Banking Group (Manufacturing), FirstBank, Bunmi Bajomo, noted that fundamental change requires fundamental actions by corporates, governments, customers and consumers.
Speaking on the topic ‘Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Manufacturing Sector’, Bajomo said, ”There is always an opportunity in any crisis.”
She said that companies with strong balance sheet would come out stronger and marginal players would struggle.
According to her, corporates should be careful and smarter with operational expenses.
Bajomo said that actions corporates take now would determine where they would be post-COVID-19.
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