-UBA GMD
November 4, 2016 By Hassan Gbassay Koroma from Lagos
Group Managing Director (GMD) of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Kennedy Uzoka, has stated that his bank was established for Africans, and that their presence in nineteen African Countries showed that the bank was connecting the whole of Africa.
Mr.Kennedy Uzoka, was on Friday 30th October, 2016 speaking at the United Bank for Africa, housed in Lagos, Nigeria during a media interactive session with top officials of the bank at Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum, 2016.
He said the interactive session was a great one because for a very long time now, the bank has not meet with journalists across Africa, covering the Tony Elumelu Foundation Forum.
He said the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc was one of Africa’s largest financial institutions, with operations in 19 African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Benin Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Cameroon, Kenya, Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Mozambique, Senegal, Congo DR and Congo Brazzaville, coupled with 3 global financial centres in New York, London and Paris.
He said the bank has more than eight million customers and 700 business offices globally.
He continued that the bank was offering a range of banking, pension fund custody and other financial services to customers in retail, commercial and corporate segments of the African market.
He said UBA has been operating in Africa for almost seventy years now, which he believed to be a sign of good leadership, noting that it was not easy for any company in Africa to operate for one hundred years.
Mr. Uzoka reiterated that the bank has done a lot, but in many senses, it was only beginning to reap the rewards of its years of network and potential, adding that they were the truly pan-African institution.
He said after a period of consolidation, they knew that the continuing expansion of their Africa footprint was a key goal and that they must ensure that they have presence in at least 25 countries in the near future.
“We are almost 70 years. We are building that enterprise (UBA) so that Africans would be proud. UBA wants to connect all the countries in Africa. We have done a lot of work to expand to other African countries, where we don’t have operations at the moment,” he said.
UBA Plc was incorporated on February 23, 1961 and was the first of the international banks operating in Nigeria at the time to be registered under Nigerian Law. Today, the bank has over 700 branches and cash offices in Nigeria’s major commercial centres, state capitals and Federal Capital Territory with two offshore branches in New York and Grand Cayman Island. UBA Plc has a strong retail franchise that has given it access to low cost and stable retail deposits in major commercial centres.