Customer Service Week: UBA Hinges Customer Satisfaction on Innovation, Optimisation and Upgrading of Banking Platforms

UBA House, Marina

Pan African financial institution, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has said that the recently embarked transformation of its processes is to ensure that customers’ expectations are not only met but surpassed while enjoying seamless and world-class banking services. 

 In ensuring this, the bank has embarked on several initiatives that include streamlining and automating its processes, upgrading technology, training, and rewarding staff excellence all towards ensuring that customers enjoy the very best of services.

 UBA’s Head of Operations, Alex Alozie, who explained this during a virtual media parley on Wednesday, October 7, 2020, to mark the 2020 Customer Service Week, said the bank has intensified its focus on putting the customer first whilst still reaffirming its leadership position.

Alozie said that in line with this year’s theme, the ‘Dream Team’, which embodies UBA’s core goals, the bank has recorded considerable milestones in its journey.   

 He said, “In the last one year we have embarked on an intensive drive to transform our services across all service touchpoints including but not limited to banking halls, channels – internet, mobile, USSD, etc in Nigeria, Africa, and territories where we operate. We have ensured that our customers enjoy self-service, where they can carry out their transactions seamlessly on their devices, without visiting the banking hall. This has further boosted customers’ confidence as the services provide ease and convenience, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

 “Honestly,  I will say that the pandemic brought out the best of us. With newly improved products like UBA Connect – where our customers can carry out transactions from anywhere in the world – and our recently improved Mobile App, our uptime has improved significantly, and our branch operations have also recorded considerable improvement. All these are the outcome of the transformation journey which we embarked upon,” Alozie noted.

 He added that there have been cases of failed transactions, and the bank has taken relevant corrective and preventive actions for service improvement. 

 UBA’s Group Head, Marketing and Customer Experience, Michelle Nwoga, pointed out that the bank is focused on being more intentional in the quality of service delivery to customers. She added that strategic initiatives have been implemented to deliver a differentiated experience to customers across all service touchpoints. 

 According to her, UBA is keen on meeting the demands of today’s diversified customer base by focusing on innovation, process re-engineering, experience optimization, and technology upgrade, etc. This is all in our effort to improve our service delivery, improve our customers’ satisfaction, and deepen our market share.  

 “Apart from this, we have also embarked on thoroughly equipping our people to deliver exceptional service, while also leveraging on data for insight to guide business decision making. We are no longer a one-size-fits-all organization, as we now personalize services based on individual specific demands; this is largely because we know that the customer is the only one that matters, and we tailor all our activities in line with their expectations,” Nwoga noted.

The Customer Service Week is celebrated annually all over the world and recognizes the importance of customer service and seeks to show appreciation to the staff who serve and support customers with the highest degree of care and professionalism.

 United Bank for Africa Plc is a leading Pan-African financial institution, offering banking services to more than twenty-one million customers, across over 1,000 business offices and customer touchpoints, in 20 African countries. 

With a presence in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France, UBA is connecting people and businesses across Africa through retail; commercial and corporate banking; innovative cross-border payments and remittances; trade finance, and ancillary banking services.

NEC 10th Edition: UBA Foundation Calls for Entries, Introduces Digital Submission Portal for Students

2019 UBA Foundation National Essay Competition

UBA Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, on Sunday, August 30, 2020, commenced the 2020 edition of its annual National Essay Competition in Nigeria with a call for entries.

Now in its tenth year, the National Essay Competition (NEC) is part of UBA Foundation’s education initiative which is aimed at promoting the reading culture and encouraging healthy and intellectual competition amongst secondary school students in Nigeria and across Africa.

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Heirs Holdings Appoints Dan Okeke as Group Executive Director

Dan Okeke

Pan-African investment company, Heirs Holdings this week announced the appointment of Dan Okeke as Group Executive Director.  The appointment took effect from August 01, 2020.

Mr Okeke joins following a distinguished three-decade career at the United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), where he most recently served as an Executive Director, responsible for leading consumer, commercial and public-sector businesses.  At HH, he will be responsible for business coordination and growth across Heirs Holdings’ portfolio of pan-African investments in the power, financial services, oil and gas, hospitality, real estate, healthcare, and financial technology sectors.

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UBA Provides $200 Million for Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry

Tony Elumelu

The United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), the leading pan-African financial services group, has acted as an Initial Mandated Lead Arranger with a consortium of Nigerian commercial and international banks in a $1.5 Billion Pre-Export Finance Facility for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).

UBA is providing $200 million (Naira equivalent) to support investment growth and liquidity requirements.  The facility will provide much needed capital for investment in NNPC’s production capacity, which is of strategic importance to the Nigerian economy and the country’s leading source of foreign exchange earnings.  UBA’s position as Lead Arranger recognises the Group’s strength in structuring and deploying financing to the oil and gas sector, and the depth and liquidity of the Group’s balance sheet.

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Coronavirus – Safety is Transcorp Hilton Abuja’s Priority – Dupe Olusola

Dupe Olusola

MD/CEO of Transcorp Hotels Plc, Dupe Olusola said the key priority of its properties, Transcorp Hilton Abuja and Transcorp Hotels Calabar, is safety amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. She said this at the Africa Tomorrow Hospitality conference during her spotlight discussion led by Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, Founder and Chairman on APO Group, a pan African communications Consultancy. 

The focus discussion was to deep dive into the leading hospitality brand’s strategy to keep both its hotels open at the onset of the pandemic, the ancillary revenue streams it tapped into and their post COVID-19 plans for recovery.

Commenting on the impact of the pandemic, Dupe Olusola said “The COVID-19 crisis is challenging for all industries. However, the hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit due to the lockdowns implemented globally. The African Union estimated that Africa’s tourism industry lost about $55billion in Travel and Tourism revenue. Bringing this home, we witnessed a drop in numbers in our occupancy and revenue metrics when the virus hit. Regardless, we set our priorities at the onset of the lockdown which was to stay open to cater to our extended stay guests, make their safety and that of our employees our topmost priority and also keep operations running at a minimal level”. 

“Not closing down the hotel during the lockdown was one of the best decisions we made. It gave our hotels clarity on the hygiene standards we wanted to maintain, constantly training the staff on operating cleaning protocols and set guidelines from health experts to get to where we are now. Our learning curve has been quick as we are better prepared more than ever to welcome all our loyal guests back.”

When asked by the host Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard to shed some light on the guidelines the hotels are working with, she referenced that being part of the Transcorp Group, which also owned a power plant with hundreds of staff who were in full operation during the lockdown, gave her insights into some things that needed to be done. Also, the strategic partnership with Hilton birthed the Hilton CleanStay Program which Transcorp Hilton Abuja has currently employed. 

Mrs Olusola expatiated on the program saying that it emphasizes on extra disinfection of frequently touched areas in guest rooms such as light switches and door handles, increased cleaning frequency of public areas including elevator buttons, hand rails etc. Other aspects of the program include the use of a Hilton CleanStay Room Seal applied on the doors of all cleaned guestrooms to let guests know that no one has accessed the rooms since they were thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. Also, the application of an anti-viral solution to sanitise the air within the hotel space regularly, amongst many other guidelines. The focus on enhanced cleanliness is visible to guests throughout their entire stay experience from check-in to check-out.

She further said “Amid the chaos that the virus birthed, there has been a lot of learning to improve on our already heightened safety standards and to create innovative solutions to maintain top of mind awareness with our guests. One of such solutions is the Drive-in cinema launched at Transcorp Hilton Abuja which provides guests a unique entertainment experience in the comfort of their vehicles, while adhering to the physical distancing guidelines. She stressed that Transcorp Hotels has so much to offer to the leisure market and those looking for fun activities and good food while at it.” 

“The easing of the lockdown, coupled with the confidence our guests have in our standards, have seen our occupancy slowly increase. As we continuously evolve on our hygiene and cleanliness guidelines during

the pandemic, we are incredibly mindful of providing excellent customer experience and delivering exceptional quality and service that we are known for across our Group.” She noted.

The Africa Tomorrow Conference was organised by Africa Hotels and Investment Forum (AHIF) a top-level gathering of investors, developers and business leaders, connecting the industry’s key players from both local and international markets.

UBA Group Announces Liadi and Alawuba as Deputy Managing Directors

UBA House, Marina

United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), the leading pan-African financial services group, is pleased to announce the appointments of Ayoku Liadi and Oliver Alawuba as Deputy Managing Directors in charge of UBA’s Nigeria and Africa businesses, respectively.

The creation of the new positions, reporting to Group CEO, Kennedy Uzoka, represents further strategic recognition of the growth of UBA’s pan-African business, now representing in excess of 40% of Group revenue, and the critical importance of Nigeria, the Group’s largest market.  Combined with UBA’s unique International Business, operating from New York, London and Paris, UBA Africa and Nigeria, offer an unparalleled service offering to clients across Africa and globally.

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