Abstract: A bank is an institution which receives surplus funds from the public, safe guard it and give it back to their true owners on request, but part of the money which is not given back to their owners are given to those who are in need of them and can provide collateral security. The need for the banking sector in any economy can not be over-emphasised.
As an institution which is responsible for financing the economy, they provide funds required to develop the economy. As a medium through which the monetary policy and fiscal policy of the government are implemented, they are used to bring about changes in the economic policies of government all over the world. The idea of banking was developed after the trade by barter system of those days crumbled due to its inability to solve the increasing needs of the people. Banking became a source of keeping, protecting and preserving excess funds of the people. It also became a source through which people who do not have these funds could make use of them to their advantage while simultaneously benefiting the banks. Professor G. O. Nwankwo, Femi Adekanye and others have over the years compiled a full history of banking system in Nigeria. The first Commercial bank in Nigeria was the African Banking Corporation which was established in coalition with Elder Dempster and Co, a shipping company based in Liverpool in 1892 with a branch in Lagos. They experienced some difficulty initially due to the orientation of Nigerians then, eventually its interest was transferred to Elder Dempster and Co. in 1 893.This brought about a new bank known as the British Bank of west Africa (BBWA) in 1893.
This was registered in London as a limited liability company in March 1894 and the first Lagos branch was opened that same year. Since then several other banks have been established to bring about competition and fast development of the banking sector. It is vital to mention here that these banks were off shoots from our colonial masters in Europe who have developed the sector in their continent to assist them in mopping up excess funds from their economy. The establishment of the banking sector was also to enhance, the repatriation of the excess funds from the under developed economies like the Nigerian economy and to establish their superiority politically and economically over the colonised territories. With the inability of the then government of President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to properly manage the economy due to lack of funds and the need to secure loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) a lot of conditionalities were given as prerequisites to obtain the loan. One of such was the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) which was implemented in 1986. Some of the conditions of SAP includes: Trade Liberalization, Privatisation and commercialization, Devaluation of currency, Deregulation of interest rate and so on. These SAP conditions brought about an economy that is open to the forces of demand and supply to operate and this led to the licensing of more banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The banks were licensed to facilitate the financial transaction in the economy and aid the achievement of the SAP mission.
The bank under consideration in this thesis Citizens International Bank Limited was one of the new generation banks established to compete with several licensed banks and bring about the expected transformation in the banking sector. It was incorporated as a private limited liability company on 22 December 1989. The bank wholly owned by indigenes has 32 Nigerian citizens who are shareholders. As at today the bank has about 17 branches located in strategic regions of the country. They have been able to position themselves strategically in the banking sector with the cooperation of professionals that form the management team. The enduring corporate culture throughout the bank and pursued corporate strategy based on traditional banking business offered to select customer groups and supported by superior relationship management and service quality, in the process have earned a strong reputation for service, professionalism and excellence in this Bank. The objective of this thesis with Citizens Bank under consideration is to determine whether the bank offers quality service to its customers and simultaneously reap the gain from quality service offering. One interesting fact is that the bank seems conscious of the most recent concept in Nigeria today called (TQM) Total Quality Management which is a concept that encompasses the effective high quality management that gives the best of service and at the same time reap the benefits that goes with such high class services. Questionnaires were distributed to the staff and personal interviews held with some of the managers.
It is observed that the bank is conscious of the concept of customer care, quality customer service and Total Quality Management, however, there is need for the management to introduce the 'concept' of a "MYSTERY SHOPPER" to enhance their leadership in the industry. It is not enough to be conscious of all the relevant concepts as above, given the fact that the staffs are human beings who have diverse attitudes, reasoning, behaviours and often acts irrationally. There is therefore the need for the mystery shopper concept, which in summary implies a close monitoring of the application of the other concepts to bring about the desired conventional objective of customer satisfaction and profitability to the organisation..............ORDER FOR COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL NOW!! .
