Again, First Bank emerges Nigeria’s top banking brand

GTB, Zenith Bank also get top ranking in The Bankers rating

 

FIRST Bank of Nigeria Plc has again, emerged the number one banking brand in Nigeria in the Top 500 World Banking Brands Ranking just released by The Banker and Brand Finance in the United Kingdom.

 

As published in the current edition of The Banker Magazine of the Financial Times Group London, First Bank emerged top in Nigeria,  closely followed by Guaranty Trust Bank, and Zenith Bank

It would be recalled that First Bank also emerged number one banking brand in Nigeria last year among the four banks that made the 2012 ranking.

According to a release by the Country Representative – Nigeria of The Banker, the publication that carried out the ranking in association with Brand Finance, Kunle Ogedengbe, First Bank came top amongst the Nigerian banks as number 414 in the world, followed by Guaranty Trust Bank (number 415) while Zenith Bank was ranked 454 on the global scale.

 

Brand Finance Plc is the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy with support for business needs in different areas including technical valuations for accounting, tax and legal purposes ; valuations in support of commercial transactions (acquisitions, divestments, licensing and joint ventures) involving different forms of intellectual property; and valuations as part of a wider mandate to deliver value-based marketing strategy and tracking, thereby bridging the gap between marketing and finance.

For the ranking, Brand Finance employed the methodology of discounted cash flow technique to discount estimated future royalties at an appropriate rate to arrive at a net present value of a bank’s trademark and associated intellectual property which is the brand value that is used in the ranking.

The process according to the magazine’s Editor, Brian Caplen has five steps. These are getting the brand-specific financial and revenue data before segmenting the revenue into retail banking, commercial banking, wholesale/investment banking, insurance, asset management and credit cards streams; model the market to identify market demand and the position of individual banks in the context of all other market competitors; establish the royalty rate for each bank; calculate the discount rate specific to each bank, taking account of its size, geographical presence, reputation, gearing and brand rating; and discount future royalty stream to a net present value which brings about the brand value.

 

First Bank leads the pack in Nigeria with a brand value of $201 million while the totality of the value of the three Nigerian banks that made the Top 500 World Banking Brands is $574 million and they collectively do the country proud as the country is among the World’s Top 50 by Total Brand Value.

On a global scale, Caplen, said the total global banking brand value of $860.7 billion are the highest they have ever been and are nearly double the level in 2009 during the worst of the financial crisis.

He added that bankers are now more aware of the importance of brand to their business and how it needs to be both invested in and protected while Brand Finance chief executive, David Haigh noted that the 2013 results show that globally the banking crisis is nearly over as both brand ratings and values are rising.

 

Only Nigeria and South Africa are the African countries that made the Top 50 banks by total brand value among the countries of the world.

The top ten bank brands in the world remains in the United States of America (USA), Europe and Asia. The 2013 number one bank brand in the world is Well Fargo of the USA. It is followed Chase (USA), HSBC (UK), Bank of America and Citi (both from the USA), Satander (Spain), ICBC (China), American Express (US), BNP Paribas (France) and China Construction Bank (China).