In a bid to consolidate the on-going restructuring process in the UNAAB Microfinance Bank (UMFB), the bank has held a training programme for its Board of Directors, tagged “Principles of Microfinance and Corporate Governance”. According to the General Manager of UMFB, Mr. Abimbola Adewale, the training was first of its kind in the history of the bank and it was meant to hold once a year for members of its Board with the aim of providing 

them with strategic knowledge on how the business of Microfinancing could be done effectively while performing their over-sight functions. Explaining further, Mr. Abimbola said such training would not be limited to the Board of Directors as the bank had scheduled another training calendar for its staff for the year, which would entail acquiring special training programmes from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Lagos Business School, Centre for Microfinance Development, as well as in-house training sessions. These measures, according to him, would further entrench the consolidation process going on in the bank such that “as part of the restructuring process that commenced in the UMFB, professionals are running the bank, while appraisal for staff is being done, and staffers are also being confirmed”. He urged customers to watch-out for some innovations by the third quarter of the year as the bank would launch its Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card, which would be usable in any ATM machine across the country; extend its outreach; repackage its salary advance, processing time and inter-bank transfers services, as customers would be opportune to access online transaction on the bank’s platform. Mr. Abimbola added that last year, the bank’s Board approved the payment of dividends of 0.25 Kobo to its shareholders, while its share capital also moved from 49.1 million to 61 million as at December 31, 2014, and was likely to do better this year. He attributed the achievements of the bank to the enormous co-operation given by the Board’s Chairman and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Olusola Oyewole, saying he had “been a huge support to the bank’s development through his support and approval of various initiatives brought forward to him”. The Managing Consultant, Resort Consult Limited, Mr. Femi Ekundayo, took members of the Board through various topics such as the Principles of Microfinance Banking, where it was clarified that a Microfinance Bank was different from the conventional bank basically because they do not have large capital base as obtainable in the conventional banks. Mr. Ekundayo further advised that Microfinance banking should be practiced according to guiding principles to achieve the desired results on a sustainable basis by adopting an operational “model” that would guarantee optimal service delivery to all stakeholders.