There is panic in the Nigerian financial sector over massive job losses as banks battle to meet the recently announced minimum capital requirements by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The National President of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions, Olusoji Oluwole, expressed these concerns during an interview with Channels Television on Monday.
He said the Association had already informed the CBN and the Ministry of Labour about the impact of the recapitalization exercise on workers in the sector.
“We are very aware of what happened in the past during such recapitalization programmes, the last being in 2005. We knew that some banks had to pull it through themselves, some through mergers, others through acquisition.
“It has an impact on the employment of workers; because of that experience, we have proactively acted by informing the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Labour of the likelihood of the programme on our members.
“When things like this happen, there are bound to be jobs lost. We expect that there will be a lot of fairness in the actions of the banks and to ensure that our members are well protected and compensated”, he said.
The CBN raised the minimum capital requirements for commercial banks with international authorization, National Spread Regional, Merchant Banks, National Non-Interest Banks, and Regional Non-interest between 100 and 900 per cent last Thursday.
What the 2024 Recapitalization exercise means with the move, the CBN proposed to achieve the $1 trillion economy of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government.
Also, the bank said the exercise would engender the emergence of healthier banks with the capacity to underwrite larger levels of credit/loans.
The development came nearly 19 years after the apex bank had last conducted its recapitalization exercise in 2005 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Prof Charles Soludo as CBN governor.
According to reports, over 5,000 staff members of affected banks such as Oceanic bank, Fin Bank, Spring Bank, Union Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Stanbic IBTC, and others lost their jobs.
This is why the announcement of the 2024 recapitalization programme sent a shockwave across the country’s banking sector.
