The United Bank of Africa (UBA) has announced a goal to rapidly expand its consumer lending portfolio from 10% to over 25%.
Increasing consumer loans, according to the bank, would be a critical accelerator for inclusive economic growth.
Mr. Anant Rao, Group Head Consumer Lending, stated this yesterday during a virtual media briefing on the topic of “Stimulating Nigeria’s Economic Growth and Impacting People’s Lives.”
He also announced the bank’s re-launch of its ‘Click Credit’ service, which now includes a new feature that allows users to get loans in three minutes.
“Our guiding principle, which I just want to stress is that we have a customer first philosophy which drives what we do in UBA,” Rao said of the bank’s aim to increase consumer lending.
“And we’re embedding this philosophy in everything we do, whether it’s process, technology, or compliance risk management; everything has to put the customer first.
“The consumer lending space is ripe for expansion across Africa, and Nigeria, fortunately, has the demographic dividend. We can see the possibilities with a population of over 200 million people. In actuality, everyone has borrowing requirements and ambitions.
“We want to downsize ourselves and our business model so that consumer lending continues to account for a significant portion of our loan portfolio in the future. We want to be aggressive while still being cautious.”
“Today, it contributes less than 10%, but our ambition is to go beyond 25%,” he continued. We have the proper underpinning infrastructure, technology platforms, and recovery infrastructure in place.”
“In terms of consumer lending, our vision is to be the most innovative and preferred bank in Nigeria and Africa, with the best consumer credit on the market. Obviously, we will not lend indiscriminately or carelessly because we want to protect our capital and depositors’ funds while still being highly careful. We are well-versed in the market, have excellent underwriting skills, and have a strong ability to recoup our losses. All of our consumers deserve to be accessible, easy, and affordable.”
“It would be a very strategic differentiator for UBA in this market and everyone who owns a mobile phone can borrow money from UBA and we are using a lot of technology and automation algorithms using artificial intelligence to ensure we profile customers well and know whom we are lending to and also create a trust relationship with them,” he said.