The Lion King | 11
Please define Retail Products in
lay terms
A retail product is a solution or
service provided to individu-
als or consumers to meet and
satisfy specific needs. In relation
to banking, a retail product is an
offering that satisfies identified
financial needs of the consumer.
The needs vary from safekeep-
ing, borrowing to movement of
funds.
Briefly describe your role as the
Head of Retail Products in UBA
As Head of Retail Products, I work
with a team of Product Managers
to strategically manage a port-
folio of deposits, remittance and
loan products. These products
are designed to satisfy identified
needs of the consumer segment
with emphasis on market accept-
ability. The core purpose of our
bouquet of products is to gener-
ate low–cost and sustainable
deposit from a varied base of
active retail customers and also
maintain a continuous stream of
income from retail transactions.
This involves conceptualizing,
structuring and managing
product solutions for identified
markets in Nigeria and Africa.
This entails wide range industry
and competitive analysis, so as
to understand the peculiarities of
different market segments and
continuously proffer tailor-made
solutions and value propositions.
As Head of Retail Products, my
responsibilities include review-
ing the bank’s product portfolios
and ensuring constant alignment
with the bank’s strategic goals;
providing oversight of product
development activities to en-
sure new products meet market
needs in line with the strategic
objectives of the bank; providing
an enabling environment and
establishing feedback mecha-
nisms that promote and gather
product innovation, product
performance, collate feedbacks
and modify product features. I
also evaluate existing products
with the view of repositioning
them above competition and to
suit current market needs. This in-
volves identifying and analysing
substitutes in the market place
and mapping out strategies to
properly position own products
to outsell substitutes, organise
product enlightenment programs
for product sales units and other
sales support units towards the
effective deployment of products
Can you identify some key mar-
ket opportunities for Retail Bank-
ing in Nigeria and Africa?
The major sectors in Africa such
as agro-allied, commerce and
education are daily evolving and
birthing intertwined activities to
create more opportunities for
Retail Banking.
While intra-African trade has
more than doubled over the past
five years, it is far below potential.
About 20 million Africans are in-
volved in inter-regional business-
es across Africa resulting in $2bn
to $5bn in flow of funds. That is
why, through successive agree-
ments, African governments
have committed themselves to
the pursuit of greater economic
integration. Intra-regional trade
still holds unrealized tremendous
potential as a driver for growth
and development. Retail Prod-
ucts division offers tailored ac-
counts for savings and business
purposes in addition to remit-
tance services which facilitate
efficient money transfer across
Africa.
What is the scope of Retail
Products division within the UBA
Group?
Within the UBA Group, the scope
covers all Retail deposit products
both generic and branded i.e.
Current, Savings, Domiciliary,
NRA (Non-Resident Accounts);
Consumer Credit e.g. No Wa-
hala Loan; and Remittances i.e.
Moneygram, Western Union and
UBA Africash.
What factors determine the kind
of products you develop for the
market?
As earlier stated, a retail product
is designed to satisfy the needs in
the consumer segment. Primarily,
we create products in response
to an identified gap in the market
space. This is with a view to de-
lighting the customer, improving
sales and consequently impact-
ing positively on the bank’s bot-
tom line. Every product is geared
for profitability.
How flexible are UBA’s retail
products to meet customers’
ever-increasing needs?
It is very flexible. We consider
the consumer segment as a
multi-faceted group with varying
needs. To effectively attend to
this segment, we look at differ-
ent scenarios largely based on
income profile, behavioural pat-
terns and regulations in design-
ing any product. For this reason,
our products sometimes come
in variants. A classical example
is our Lion Prime product with six
variants targeted at the needs of
various customer types.
Furthermore, we regularly review
our product offerings vis-à-vis
market realities and competition
to guarantee the product life
cycle evidenced by increasing
customer uptake
What is UBA doing differently to
ensure that it stays ahead of its
competitors and retain its market
share?
We focus on the customer, put-
ting his needs first and living our
core values particularly “Empa-
thy”.
We are also tapping greatly into
the boom in the digital era via
product innovation and mar-
keting strategies that enhance
availability and accessibility to
the consumer.
How has Retail Banking imparted
on UBA’s profit especially with re-
cent developments in the indus-
try and the 75% Credit Reserve
Ratio for banks in Nigeria?
Financial Inclusion (FI) became
the immediate approach to
staying afloat in the advent of
the 75% CRR of Banks’ public
sector deposits. The huge size of
the unbanked segment of the
population has to be drastically
reduced before FI objectives can
be said to have been achieved.
Hence Retail Banking is the plat-
form for providing a broad range
of financial services which meets
their needs at affordable costs
Ask the Executive
