Abstract: The Nigerian Commercial Banking Services have in the recent past been criticised and condemned. They have been accused of conservation in their operations. Some say their services across the counter is poor and inefficient. That they spend not less than two to three hours to cash a dheque. The attitude of the Bank's staff has also been castigated. There have been several newspaper articles describing Nigerian Bankers to be untrained, slow, discourteous, rude and non-chalant to customers' yearnings. They were also accused of inefficiency and favouritism.
The bankers on the other hand claimed that their services are adequate and efficient for the present banking habit. That, it is the poor banking ethics of Nigerians that forced them to adopt stringent and meticulous procedures to avert looses through frauds and other dubious practises. They further argued that, the computerisation technic adopted in Europe and United States cannot immediately be introduced here because majority of the customers that contribute substantially to the revenue of the Banks are largely illiterates. That apart, the Nigerian public are not enlightened and trusting enough to accept cheques whatmore credit cards for ordinary day to day transactions. Therefore, since the bulk of businesses being handled by the Banks largely involve liquid cash, their procedures for sometime to come would have to be manual and fairly time consuming. To confirm or disaprove the allegations, a survey was initiated. Questionnaires probing the feelings of customers towards the services rendered by their main bank were distributed among over sixty branches of the three major banks, that is, United Bank for Africa PLC, Union Bank of Nigeria PLC, and Afribank of Nigeria PLC. throughout the state capitals including Abuja. The three banks were specially selected in view of their experience, standard and the fact that they account for over 6O% of banking services in the country.
The survey findings reveal that:(a) The Thesis advanced by the various critics of commercial banks in Nigeria is false and unfounded. It is clearly revealed that averagedly customers spend less than thirty minutes to obtain the required services. (b) The claim that bank-tellers are rude, discourteous, impleasant and non-chalant was also found to be false and exagerative, (c) The Commercial banks in Nigeria are not as conservative as the critics postulated. Rather, their operations and procedures are tailored towards the level of understanding of their customers. It is their believe therefore that selective mechanisation as they now practise would overtime improve their services and reduce the customers ' waiting time. (d) The banks adopt what look like cumbersome procedure because of the poor banking ethics of the society failed the banks in the past when payments were usually effected with little attention to verification vide dishonesty and premeditated frauds. (e) Some of the delays are caused due to high labour turnover among the clerical staff and the overstretched supervisors and officers. (f) Finally, that if the Government can effectively legislate making it an offence that would attract maximum penelty for an individual who issues cheque on an account not properly funded or attempt to defraud the hank in whatever way possible, then the banks would be willing to relax some of their stringent control procedures and in effect reduce the waiting time. In conclusion, therefore, improvement of banking services is a function of both the Banks and the society at large. If the society is honest and matured in their dealings with the bank, it is more than likely that more efficient banking services would be enjoyed..............ORDER FOR COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL NOW!! .
