24 July 2018 ( Lagos ) : A recent tweet by Sterling Bank broke the internet and is getting all the attention, but probably not for the right reasons.
Sterling Bank recently posted an image, mimicking the identification logos of some big banks like Access Banks Plc, GTBank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Limited and Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, by coyly depicting that where Sterling Bank’s customers are “ in shooting for the moon, men become stars”; the customers of the aforementioned banks are on the ground.
Save GTBank, all the other banks in question came down to the battlefield to defend their honor, coming up with some pretty innovative re-tweets to show their odium.
Union Banks response went something like “ Heading for the moon, without a spacesuit.. journey mercies”; Access Banks reacted by tweeting “ we will travel on an imaginary rocket too, if we were a one-customer Microfinance Bank, but with ten million customers and counting, we rather bring the galaxy to you”.
First Bank did not want to be left behind and joined the bashing- bandwagon by tweeting “ What an elder sees while sitting , a child cannot see even if he travels to the moon.. And straight into the trash can”
Well, we feel GTBank did not see the need for these trivial outbursts as each Bank’s financial numbers and yearly/ quarterly results in itself speaks about their performance and their respective positions in the industry.
For instance, according to the yearly financial reports dated 31 December 2017; Zenith Bank boasts the highest PAT of more than N 177 billion; along with the second highest market cap in the sector, making it one of the blue chip stocks of the sector. GTBank, with the highest market cap of N 1147 billion of the sector, making it the leading bank in the Banking industry, recorded a PAT of N 170 billion.
Whereas, UBA, made a PAT of N 78.6 billion and Access bank made N 62 billion PAT. First Bank recorded a group level PAT of N47.7 billion.
Last but not the least, Sterling Bank Plc, which started this outbreak and became the receiver of all the antagonism, made N 8.5 billion on PAT and boasts of one of the lowest market caps in the industry ~ N 40 billion.
Reporting for EasyKobo on Tuesday, 24 July 2018 in Lagos, Nigeria