JAIZ Bank has said it is making strategic efforts to upscale its reach in existing and new markets across sub-Saharan Africa to achieve the target of being among the top three.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Jaiz Bank Plc, Mr Hassan Usman, disclosed this in an interactive session with financial market journalists in Lagos.
Usman noted that over the past 10 years, the bank has come a long way to be in the sixth position of the top non-interest bank in the sub-Sahara Africa, while noting that despite challenges the bank has maintained its leadership role by deepening this alternative model of financing, thus providing the foundation for its expansion, and providing the needed ethical funding for infrastructural development in the country.
To support the bank’s growth trajectory, the bank was currently working with fintechs to strengthen and expand its digital channels as a non-interest-banking group, while noting that the bank would continue to innovate and provide products with a substantial socio-economic impact on its customers.
As the bank marks a decade of providing non-interest financial services, Mr Usman said it had grown its balance sheet size from N12 billion in December 2012 to almost N300 billion in 2021, having broken even within the first three years of operation, an precedented feat.
The Non-Interest Bank began operations on January 6, 2012, with three branches in Abuja, Kaduna, and Kano. It has since expanded to other cities and recently commissioned its 45th branch in Akure, Ondo State, last week.
Looking back, Usman noted that the bank’s major challenge was an absence of the needed infrastructure to support non-interest banking, however, with the launch of the Sukuk Bond, more awareness is being given to the non-interest financial system.
Usman, however, advocates more players in the industry while noting that the country is a big market and there is ample space for new products and services.
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