If you demand
a service from
the bank, you
expect to get
it pronto. You
want your
demands to be
given priority
attention, you
deserve it!”
6 •
The Lion King
• July - September 2015
C
heck out this scenario! A hungry
man walks into a restaurant to have
lunch. He is in no mood for pleasant-
ries and barks out his orders in a waspish
tone. He is very loud and demanding but
a smart junior waiter does a good job of
handling the man’s demands. When the
man leaves, the waiter’s supervisor is so
pleased that he gives him a bonus for the
day; a voucher for a free massage at the
most exclusive spa in town. The waiter is
undoubtedly excited so he goes to the spa
to get the well deserved massage.
Guess the ‘big man’ who runs the spa?
Turns out the jolly good ‘hungry’ fellow,
who visited the restaurant earlier, runs the
spa. Payback is fun, right? And, of course,
the waiter intended to get the very last
dime’s worth out of whatever amount of
money he paid at the spa.
Jokes apart, is there really anyone who
doesn’t like getting value for money? When
I pay for a service, I want to be treated like
a king, even if I’m a king’s servant. I want
to be constantly reminded how important I
am because the service provider depends
on the money I am paying to remain in
business; even if my pocket is not as big as
my ego.
If you are a bank customer, the story is pret-
ty much the same. You know the bank has
over a million customers to attend to with
the same resources, but how is that sup-
posed to be your problem? If you demand
a service from the bank, you expect to get
it pronto. You want your demands to be
given priority attention, you deserve it!
For a big bank like UBA with over 8 million
customers, giving each customer priority
attention is non-negotiable. So we have
adopted different strategies to ensure that
each customer is treated like a king. One
way we have achieved this is by imple-
menting a ‘personal banking’ model to
enable the organisation bank each indi-
vidual like he/she is the only customer.
The model is a simple but effective one.
Each customer’s banking needs can be
broadly categorised as students, profession-
als, expatriates/diaspora, or self employed
professionals. Personal Banking segments
customers along occupation, age, income
lines, social activities and geographies,
and apportions the appropriate resources
and technologies to reach and serve each
customer effectively.
For instance if you are a student, UBA has
products and services with tailor-made fea-
tures for you. The U-Care savings account
which is an education-specific savings
account opened in the name of the ben-
eficiary is designed to support education
through primary and secondary school
years and even up to Master’s degree
level. There is also NextGen account,
meant for the educated and enlightened
youth or young adult in secondary and
tertiary institutions. This account comes
packed with great features, events and
activities geared towards preparing youths
for financial independence and economic
empowerment from the very early stages
of life.
On the other hand, if you are self-
employed, a young professional, executive
professional, civil servant or even a public
sector executive, the bank also has special
products for you. At UBA, we understand
that “choice is the ultimate luxury” so we
have provided you with a suite of prod-
ucts including the newly enhanced UBA
LifeStarter and UBA Lion Prime accounts
suites.
These accounts come with several variants
designed to match any professional’s age
and lifestyle. With these accounts, we will
reduce your cost of business and help you
to maximise returns on all your financial
transactions, with offers such as Zero COT
and higher interest rates on your current
account.
The UBA Professional Current account is
equally designed for efficient salary and
Banking
Gone Personal
By Nonso Nduanya
