THE issuance of operating licenses to two merchant banks – South Africa’s FirstRand Bank and Nigeria’s First Securities Discount House Limited (FSDH), to commence business in Nigeria after regulatory distinction between merchant and commercial banking was abrogated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) about 13 years ago, has been a topical issue in the banking community.
In the 1990s, there were many merchant banks in the country, but because of the daunting challenges they faced, all of them converted to commercial banking. Some of their complaints in those days, were that they were not allowed access to the clearing house, no freedom to generate free funds by direct mobilisation from the grassroots, payment of huge current account turnover charges to commercial banks and the commercial banks’ transaction of businesses, which were supposed to be the exclusive preserve of the merchant banks, amongst others.
Of the two recently approved merchant banks, FSDH Merchant Bank Limited has, in fact, commenced business.
The firm, which first commenced opration as a discount house in March 1993, said that, in continuation of its tradition as a pioneer in the sub-sector, it has become one of the first merchant banks to be awarded licence in Nigeria since the repeal of Universal Banking by CBN in 2010.
Following this development, The Guardian sought the opinion of experts on whether the factors that forced all the merchant banks in the country years ago to convert to commercial banks have now gone and what future lies ahead of the business under the new dispensation.
A lagos-based Investment adviser and financial services consultant, Mr. Dave Ogiemwonyi, said merchant banking requires lower capital requirement to establish and with its re-introduction in the banking industry, it would provide opportunity for banks to serve niche markets and customers in few locations.
He explained that the new window for merchant banks to come on board is an opportunity for discount houses to convert into a more viable model as all banks have become commercial and retailer in nature, certain customers would of necessity continue to require specialist attention and skilled services.
According to him, at minimum capital base of N25 billion for commercial banks, return on equity would remain low and tough but that with lower minimum capital base for merchant banks, they could pursue decent return on equity. Foreign banks, expected in the country, would prefer to be small and operate in a few cities, thus merchant banking will be ideal.
Ogiemwoyi deposed that the new licensing regime would revive the inter-bank market for placements since merchant banks would be net takers.
“Usually merchant banks rely on commercial banks for funding and this could be another source of risk if the merchant banks become excessive risk takers. Overall, it is a good development to deepen the market and cater for all customer segments but inherent risks must be managed,” he cautioned.
But Mr. Femi Ekundayo, a veteran merchant banker and the pioneer managing director/chief executive of the defunct Devcom Merchant Bank Limited and currently the Group Chairman, Resort Group of Financial Services Companies, examined the issue.
Explaining that merchant banking is a segment of various banking services, he obseved that what distinguishes it is the wholesale nature of it, while commercial banking is retail involves everything banking.
According to him, merchant banking concentrates on corporate entities and high net worth individuals.
In view of this, he affirmed that there is enough to engage the merchant banks in Nigeria now, adding, “When you look at the merchant banks, there are so many things they could do but it must also have what I would call its own structure. When merchant bank came to our shore, so many other banks and many financial institutions joined; and it was convenient for people to come into it under the guise of merchant bank; and they wanted to do everything that the merchant banks were doing and that was probably why people ran into problem and started seeking to change into commercial banks.
“There is no doubt that commercial banking has greater latitude and wider latitude. Merchant banking is supposed to be specialist industry. It isn’t supposed to be as big, in term of size, in term of personnel and even in term of clientele base, it isn’t have to be; but it requires specialists. Today, one thing that made IBTC to stand out was because it came in as a merchant bank and remained small but focused, it identified its own customers, and as at the time it was being set up, it had identified the areas to focused on. But several other merchant banks that came in had no such focus. They decided to establish branches in every town including their chairmen’s towns and these were really not necessary in merchant banking.”
According to him, the situation in the past made it easy for people to succeed in forming merchant banks. In some other environments like in the UK, if you chose to operate as merchant bank, you would remain a merchant bank and you would continue to improve on your areas of specialisation.
“But with regard to the licensing of the two merchant banks in the new dispensation, what is not clear to me is the kind of research that the CBN has carried out to prove that those circumstances that prevailed that made XY Merchant Bank clamoured and converted to commercial bank that those factors have been taken care of in allowing the evolution of merchant banks in this dispensation, Ekundayo said.
He continued: “I know there are guidelines but I also consider some of those guidelines very tough. For example, minimum size of deposit account, that is a tall order but I want to give it to the Central Bank that it must have conducted a thorough research. And probably this is the reason why they are not too many of them now. There are only two and one of them, the FSHD Merchant Bank, which has tested the water as a discount house, I believe, with this conversion, it must have done its own study to believe that it would be better of in this new area of business.”
Ekundayo, explained that what is important to make merchant banking to succeed is having experts to handle all the special products and services of a merchant bank.
And when The Guardian reminded him that one of the reasons the previous merchant banks sought status change was because of high interest rate and whether the prevailing interest rate, which the CBN, through MPR, had pegged at 12 per cent, would not hinder the mobilisation of deposit to do business by the new merchant banks? Ekundayo has this to say:
“This is an area of concern. But when you talk about deposit, you are looking at a number of factors. The most important of the factors, in my own opinion, is public confidence. This is one area where the CBN as well as the new in-coming merchant bank practitioners need to do a lot.
“The questioned you have asked is a pointer to what people will feel if the same situation that prevailed in the environment when many merchant banks became commercial banks is still there, and now again, you are granting licenses to new ones to come on board, I think what is needed is public enlightenment both by the CBN as well as the in-coming practitioners. Until that is done, I am afraid, the new merchant banks might not be able to attract more patronage in term of deposit drive but there would be remarkable change if there is enlightenment.
“Deposit, as I said earlier, is a function of confidence. The level of deposit requirement as stipulated by the CBN, I think, might debar a lot of high net worth individuals to become customers of the merchant banks. This was what the Nigeria’s past banking publics identified that made them to move more towards commercial banking than merchant banks. Merchant banks, also knew and wisely too, that once you are a bank, you need a lot of deposit patronage to succeed. If you take the balance sheet of an average bank and look at the total capital employed, it is usually about three to four times the size of the shareholders’ fund. But the CBN’s desire is that merchant banks should operate more with shareholders’ funds with little or no use of depositors’ funds. That has been a problem.
“In today‘s banking, when the CBN is promoting the policy of financial inclusion, which is what has brought virtually everybody, including the micro customers into the banking system, introduction of merchant banking might not necessarily include the various categories of customers. What I mean is that, today, many people can become customers of microfinance banks and anybody can become customer of commercial banks but the merchant banks would remain a bit exclusive. They are supposed to be but the larger their customer base, the better.
“I hope that the regulatory authorities did sufficient survey to believe that, even with all that exclusive regulation of the merchant banks, they will still be able to operate effectively in a country like Nigeria,” he enthused.
On the awesome political power of commercial banks over the merchant banks because they are limited in scope of operations, the erstwhile CIBN president replied:
“The commercial banks have moved away from universal banking. What they are doing now is not universal. It is just that they are structured in a manner that they can attract different categories of customers substantially larger than what the merchant banks can.
“Even the microfinance banks also have guidelines as to what they can do and what they cannot do. But when it comes to reckoning, so many different types of fish can be caught within the net of microfinance banks just as the net of commercial banking can also capture a lot of different types of fish but the kind of fish that can be caught with the net of merchant banks are big fish, no doubt, but fewer and I am just hoping that the number will not be too small to enable the merchant banks operate effectively and efficiently in Nigeria.”
No comments:
Post a Comment