Wednesday, 09 May 2012 /John Omachonu / Businessday   

Determined to effect a seam­less adoption of the Interna­tional Finan­cial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commer­cial banks have contributed N500 million towards the project which requires all the banks to be fully compli­ant in their 2012 financials .
 

The collaboration, com­ing under the aegis of the Bankers Committee, will ensure that the bankers upscale their knowledge in the reporting format which is proving the Achilles heel for some banks.
 

Tokunbor Martins, CBN director, banking supervi­sion department said this at the post Bankers Committee meeting in Lagos yesterday.
 

Martins said the contri­bution was towards the IFRS academy, where skills and competencies can be built for the IFRS.
 

She said that to under­score the importance of the policy, the meeting which was chaired by Sanusi Lami­do Sanusi, CBN governor, in­vited Ernst and Young, which made presentation to the house, with the aim of work­ing together for the smooth execution of the project.
 

She said the regulatory bank, in conjunction with commercial banks was de­termined to evolve a trans­parent and accountable banking sector.
 

Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, MD, Access Bank observed that the sector was capable and willing to support the power sector, provided the execution of the power road map was properly done. Apart from direct funding by the banks, the infrastructure bonds will assist in long term financing.
 

Phillip Oduoza, MD, UBA said the cashlite policy has gathered momentum, adding that as at the end of April 110,000 merchants had registered with 60,000 terminals deployed. He further said that N3.9 billion worth of transactions had been handled from January to date.
 

Bola Adesola, MD, Stan­dard Chartered Bank said significant progress had been made in the area in inclusion of women in the scheme of things in the in­dustry. Adesola said it was the expectation of the com­mittee that by 2014, 30 per­cent of board seats would be for women, and 40 percent at the senior management level would be for women. Presently, the percentage is 15 and 27 respectively. He added that henceforth, 60 percent of the SMES funds from the CBN would be tar­geted at women- owned or managed businesses.
 

Speaking on the sideline, Martins, the CBN direc­tor, banking supervision further added: “The CBN has put some processes in place towards having a more transparent and account­able banking sector. And to that end, we invited Ernst & Young Consulting to brief the committee on how they intend to midwife the tran­sition to IFRS. At the end of this year, all banks will be rendering their finan­cial statement to regulatory bodies and SEC using IFRS.”
 

“The outcome of the pre­sentation is that we are all going to be working to­gether to make sure that that is done correctly. The banks and the CBN have contrib­uted a sum of money to the IFRS Academy and the ob­jective of that is to make sure that there is the required competence and skills to get this project moving for­ward. We are also working on a framework to address customer complaints and financial literacy. The IFRS Academy itself has a large budget, but the CBN and the banks have contributed N500 million. The sum was divided in specific propor­tions and the objective is to build up skills in the indus­try,” Martins added.