By Francis Akinnodi

Finance experts have charged financial institutions in Nigeria to prioritise customers’ satisfaction at the expense of profit.

The experts who spoke with The Hope in Akure yesterday, said banks must channel their energy towards supporting their customers.

According to report from the managing director and chief executive of First Bank of Nigeria, Dr Adesola Adeduntan charged financial institutions to go beyond making profits but rather focus on growing the wealth of its customers and the country’s economy at large.

He said banks and financial institutions need to realise that they can only grow when their customers are excelling.

“Our role is not just about making money or focusing on ourselves. It is about helping the country itself to grow the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That way, we believe our clients can grow and thrive and we ourselves can grow and thrive and that is the reason why we have been here for 127 years.”

An economist, Opeyemi Agbaje said, Nigeria would not achieve growth in 2022 with inflation on the rise.

To him, there is incoherence around monetary policies like interest and exchange rates, noting that, everything seems to be going in the wrong direction as the country is not focused on the fundamentals.

On his part, a financial consultant, William Ogunleye noted that, the country in its present state, does not need higher taxes and should work on curbing high unemployment and low output, which he said could be disastrous for the country.

He stressed that Nigeria was still the country with the fourth highest unemployment rate in Africa at 33.3 per cent, with a misery index of 50.41 per cent.

He added that inflation had affected consumers’ purchasing power, saying 93.9 million people were still in the threshold of poverty.