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International Banker is joined by Mr. Daniel Asiedu, Managing Director of OmniBSIC Bank to discuss the bank’s impressive financial performance in 2024, its customer-service strategy and how it’s leveraging AI and big data to enhance the customer experience.
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Today, International Banker is joined by Mr. Daniel Asiedu, managing director of OmniBSIC Bank. We’ll be discussing the bank’s impressive financial performance in 2024, its customer-service strategy and how it’s leveraging AI and big data to enhance the customer experience. Daniel, really pleased to have you with us today.
Thank you very much. I’m excited to be here, Simon.
Now, why don’t we start with the story so far, if you like. Where has the bank come from? What’s the journey it’s been on? And where are we now?
Thank you very much, Simon. The successful bank you’re seeing today, OmniBSIC Bank, is a merger of two relatively small banks about five, six years ago arising out of the banking consolidation in Ghana. And this bank was created. And over the years, the bank has transformed to what we are seeing today. Two banks, that were relatively unknown. Today, OmniBSIC Bank is the best brand in Ghana. It’s won many awards. It’s a place where most people want to work.
Well, let’s look at some of the details of that. According to the bank’s latest published financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2024, OmniBSIC’s operating income increased year-on-year by 40 percent from 534 million Ghana cedi in 2023 to 746 million in 2024. Now, to what main factors do you attribute this strong growth? And were there any specific sectors that performed strongly that you should highlight?
Thank you very much, Simon. It gets interesting when you look at the profit before tax and when you look at the operating income—maybe you don’t get the picture well. But when you bring it out to the profit before tax, we more than doubled it. It was a growth of about 106, 109 percent, I beg your pardon. So, it tells you that we did a lot of things right in 2024. And I must say that this year has even started much better than 2024, when we thought that we did much better. And, so, we’re excited about it. And it’s obvious when the brand is doing very well in the market, it means that customers have come to appreciate and accept the brand. It means that customers are being served well. So, the first thing I want to allude to this impressive performance is customer service that we offer to our customers, who are very excited banking or doing business with us. The second thing I want to talk about is the brand acceptability. I mean, clearly five, six years ago, this OmniBSIC brand was relatively unknown in the Ghanian market. But today, it is everywhere. People are talking about it. And, so, it means that the brand has really been embraced by the Ghanaian banking environment. And, so, we are excited about that. The third thing is that we have a dedicated and committed staff who will stop at nothing to make sure that the customers are served very well. Our products are so unique. We, our product offerings, I mean, they’re so unique. And these are the things that set us apart. So, when you put all this together, of course, with the strategic direction of the board doing a great job supporting us. So, when you put all this together, it’s what has contributed significantly to our growth. In terms of sectors, for us as a bank, we believe that all the sectors of the Ghanaian economy must be supported to grow. And, so, traditionally, we don’t discriminate or segregate or concentrate on a particular sector. What we are doing is that, as long as it’s a business, our customers need our support. It will benefit the Ghanaian economy. We are ready to play in that sector. And, so, we played in all the sectors in 2024.
Throughout much of its literature, OmniBSIC Bank makes clear that customer-service excellence is its primary strength. And what differentiates the bank from the competition.
Thank you very much once again, Simon. Yes, you’re right. We set out to be different, and that’s why our tagline says: “Not just another bank”. We realize that most of the customer relationship that pertain in our market is very generic, so we said, “How can we make ours different?” And, so, we, for us, when you do business with us, we have dedicated relationship managers who attend to your needs. They are available to you 24/7. We try to even bring banking closer to you. Our economy is more of a cash economy, and, so, people are always wanting to withdraw cash. And they don’t have to come to our banking hall. The relationship managers are at your beck and call, and anything you want, they give it to you. And, so, that is what makes us different. The second thing that makes us different from customer service is the fact that product innovation is key. We don’t, it’s something we emphasized strongly, and, so, we are constantly developing products to meet customers’ needs. And we do this by ensuring that we understand the customers. So, you see, the relationship manager gets closer to the customers. They understand the customers. And based on what we get as the feedback, we design specific products to meet their needs. And that’s what sets us apart.
Now, you mentioned earlier data and artificial intelligence. You’re using that to help redefine customer experience and position OmniBSIC as the bank of choice in the Ghanaian banking industry. How are you integrating these technologies into specific products and services? And what’s been the general response or feedback to these innovations from your customers?
Well, big data and AI, you agree with me that it’s a big thing worldwide. It is not just peculiar to our environment. And we believe strongly that using this will make us understand the customer better. We come to, so, through big data and AI, we’re able to profile the customers and then get to know their needs. And this allows us to ensure that we serve them well. Because once we know their needs, we can design products around it. And it also makes it easier for us to look at the customer and say, “O.K., where are the touchpoints in our business where customers will naturally have contact with us?” And, so, we have to ensure that all the touchpoints have these sort of systems there, so that over time, we get to know the customer more, serve the customer more. And that is what is differentiating us from the rest.
And the bank appears to value the use of virtual engagement by its relationship managers in order to develop those strong customer relationships you’re talking about. Which specific channels does this virtual engagement manifest itself in?
So, we keep saying that the world has become a global village. And, so, irrespective of where you are, you should be able to link up and deal with your customers. And, so, we emphasize virtual engagement a great deal. And because of that, we have invested heavily in technology, because virtual engagement means that your technology, technological platform, has to be up to speed. And, so, we use various platforms. So, we have, of course, the regular phone calls. We have internet banking. Internet banking, basically, you can sit in the comfort of your office or at home or wherever in the world and can still do banking. The only thing you can’t do with internet banking is to take physical cash, but other than that, you can do every banking, every aspect of banking that you can think of. We also have the mobile-banking app, which we launched recently. And ours is very different from what you get in the market, because with us, again, on your phone, you can do many things. Just like internet banking that I talked about. And, of course, you have the 24/7 call center, where customers can call in from any part of the world, and then they’ll be attended to. And, of course, we have social media as well that we use to reach out to our customers. So, these are the various platforms that we constantly use to engage customers virtually. And, of course, we talk about zooms and teams and all that. Periodically, we engage customers using these platforms as well.
Thinking about those platforms, what can you tell us about the integrated banking platforms that you’re implementing for both retail and SME clients under your digital-transformation project? Trying to keep pace, I suppose, with all the changes out there. What can clients do or experience through these integrated platforms that they couldn’t do previously? What’s new?
Thank you very much once again, Simon. Well, these digital platforms, channels are very, very important, very important in the sense that the world has moved away from manual ways of doing things, having to have physical contact with customers and the likes. So, we have, like I said, we have many of these platforms. And what is unique about these platforms is that we have taken our time to understand, based on research data, to understand what customers are looking for. So, using this platform, you can do many things. Sometimes, you can even create international business and things like that. These platforms allow you. So, you can have a customer who is in say China, and then perhaps he’s talking to his exporter there to say, “Look, I need to do ABCD.” And then with us, you don’t have to come to Ghana, right; using the platform and channels you can link up with us, and whatever you want, we will do it. These actions you couldn’t do previously. And, so, we are generally transforming the banking industry in Ghana using these digital channels and platforms.
Now, you’re talking a lot about the customer, the client, how you’re listening to them, how you’re reacting to them and responding to them. But, of course, one of the key things for the bank is the staff, the employees themselves. And one of the bank’s five key pillars is the empowered employees. I’ll read from this: “Staff training and capacity building are a top priority to ensure we keep up high standards of knowledge, professional conduct and service excellence”. So, it sounds fantastic. But how exactly are your staff-training programs structured? And are you happy with how these programs are updated to stay in line with the rapid evolution of customers’ needs and preferences? Because change is with us, and it’s happening all the time, isn’t it?
Thanks, and you’re absolutely right. So, first of all, we have a policy that every staff has to be trained at least once every year, at least once every year. Some may be trained two, three, four times, depending on the specific schedule you are on. And these trainings are necessitated by the feedback we get from staff themselves, the engagement from the customers, what they’re doing and all that. So, if we see a gap, then what we do is that we fashion this training to make sure that we bridge that gap. And, so, by so doing, we have sent staff to everywhere, to most parts of the world for training. So, our training is not just limited to our local environment alone. So, we have sent staff to Harvard Business School; we have sent staff to University of Chicago Booth School of Business; we have sent staff to MIT Sloan School of Management; we have sent staff to London Business School, London School of Economics. I can go on and on and on and on. And, so, like I said, for as long as we think that there is a need to be addressed, we look around the world, “Look, how do we get this?” We are the only bank come as low as branch managers. So, when you look at the hierarchy of the structure that we have, branch managers generally are middle-level management. But we are proud to say that we even send our staff at branch-manager level on overseas training, and it’s quite expensive. It’s expensive, but we are ready to bear that cost because we know ultimately our customers will benefit from this.
Now, a question I often ask in these interviews is about sustainability. Is it an important concept to OmniBSIC Bank? What are some of the key ways in which you’re engaging in sustainable banking at present, if at all?
Simon, you agree with me that our environment has to be kept safe, and so sustainability is very key. And practices and processes have to align accordingly. And, so, there are many forms by which we ensure that sustainability is maintained. So, we have green financing, for instance. A lot of the customers we support, we want to make sure that the projects are eco-friendly. We want to make sure that sustainable businesses are also supported. So, traditional banking where customers are just supported irrespective of the impact in the market is no longer the case. We just have to be sure that these things, these businesses, comply. We are also very particular about even eco-friendly operations. And, so, internally, we are mindful of how we do things. So, paper-less and things like that, just to make sure that we are also contributing. Recently, we partnered with Ghana Airports. So, if you come to Ghana now, and you arrive at the airport, you will see segregated bins. And basically these segregated bins or segregation bins are supposed to help with waste management. And, of course, also sustainability. We also recently partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency to support the single-use-of-plastic reduction initiative. And, so, we are doing many things. Even if you come to us as a bank internally, the gender balance is about 50/50. And, so, you have more women or more men, but that balance is there. And then, finally, we also believe that we have to give back to the environment where we operate in. So, of course, we look for projects that we think are under that CSR initiative, it will help the environment. We do that. And then as a bank, we do what we call the regular periodic health walks. It’s the biggest in Ghana. We had the first one for this year I think about two or three Saturdays ago—the biggest, attracting about 34,000 people. They come together—our customers, general public—they come together to walk. Last time, we walked about 15 kilometers, and that’s a lot. We do that quarterly. It’s basically to raise your awareness that your health is everything, and so people must take time to exercise. And in the office we pay for people to go to the gym and all that. So, all these are actions we are doing to make sure that sustainability is maintained.
Finally, Daniel, as managing director of OmniBSIC Bank, what has been your most significant challenge you faced over the last year or so? And what is the most important objective you hope to achieve before the end of the year as a banking leader?
Again, Ghana is a developing economy. And it has its own challenges. Interest rates are high; inflation rate is high: exchange rate, again, in local cities is relatively weak against some of these foreign currencies. And, so, it makes doing business in Ghana relatively difficult. I mean, if you want to borrow money from the banks now, you’re looking at about 30 percent. And, so, naturally the default rate in that market is higher. And, so, it means that as a bank, you have to be extra careful in lending to businesses. But these businesses, also, they need your support. And, so, sometimes I think it makes it, it makes us too cautious. But that is the approach we have to adopt. Again, the domestic debt exchange program that was initiated by the government about two years ago or so thereabouts has had its effect on us as a relatively small bank. I mean, we were hit with a huge provision. Thankfully, we have recovered. But, of course, we are still seeing the effect of that in our environment. And, so, you have to be extra cautious when you look at, looking at some of these businesses. And then, we are a relatively small bank. Competition is high. But I want to believe that competition is working to our advantage, because it’s making us do things differently. And, so, if you look at our balance-sheet growth, for instance, we grew it by about close to 70 percent. Of course, I talked about profitability of about 109 percent. So, it means that competition is bringing out the best in us. Although it’s a challenge, but we are, we are O.K. with that. And then, of course, finally talking about the objective—what I want to see achieved in 2025. Well, for me, there are two ways I want to look at this. Because there are stakeholders; there are various stakeholders. The first thing is that if you look at internal stakeholders, staff and then, of course, shareholders. In 2025, I want to make sure that I have the happiest staff you can think of. I want to make sure that we create the right environment. I mean, our environment is one of the best places to work in. But I believe there’s always room for improvement. I want to make sure that, I want to return good, I want to make sure that we give good returns to our shareholders. Externally, customers are number one. I want to make sure that we continue to serve them better in 2025. We also want to make sure that we comply fully with regulation—that is, the necessary regulation. We are doing that, but we want to make sure. Because ultimately, we are creating a bank that will be different from the other banks. And, then, we also want to make sure that government is very happy with us as a bank in Ghana. Thank you.
That’s a great story, and thank you very much for taking the time to share it with us.
My pleasure, Simon. Thank you.