The Bank currently has three foreign subsidiaries within the African continent, namely: Skye Bank (Sierra Leone) Limited, Skye Bank (Gambia) Limited, and Skye Bank (Guinea) Limited.

The CBN, in its recent release directed banks to submit their individual plans for their new banking models 90 days from October 4, 2010 (i.e. on January 3, 2011), on account of the repeal of the Universal Banking Model (one-stop shop financial services supermarket) which banks in Nigeria had operated inthe past few years.

In a recent special release to all banks and the general public, with the title “CBN Scope, Conditions and Minimum Standards for Commercial Banks Regulations No. 01, 2010″, the minimum capital requirement for banks seeking ‘national banking license’ was pegged at N25 billion, which was the minimum capital for the recently repealed Universal Banking license. In like manner, the CBN stated that the minimum capital for banks seeking international banking license is now N50 billion.

Skye Bank Plc is believed to likely seek the international banking license, considering that after raising additional capital of about N12 billion recently via a special placement, its capital rose to about N99 billion, which is approximately 100% above the minimum N50 billion capital requirement for international banks. This is in addition to the Bank’s three foreign subsidiaries, which the Bank is likely to keep, in order to remain internationally competitive.

Skye Bank, which has good reputation for supporting businesses, especially through structured finance in critical sectors such as manufacturing, power, oil and gas, construction, transportation, hospitality, education, housing, agriculture, maritime/shipping etc, is expected to continue its tradition, in addition to seeking to up-tier its business focus in favor of the corporate segment.

The Bank recently financed the ultra modern Beloxxi Industries Limited, the biggest indigenous biscuit manufacturing company in Nigeria today, which is located at Agbara, Ogun State.

It also funded projects such as Independent Power Projects (IPPs) in the South-South and North-West, Steel Mills in various parts of the country, fertilizer importation, ultra modern hotels in Lagos and Port Harcourt, private schools in Lagos and Abuja, housing schemes across Nigeria, West Africa’s leading cocoa factory, several oil and gas exploration and production installations, various vessel acquisitions, clearing and forwarding agency activities, etc.

Skye Bank is also committed to encouraging the Nigerian entrepreneurial spirit, having accessed significant funding through the CBN-led Commercial Agriculture Guarantee Scheme (CAGS) for subsequent on-lending to customers. The Bank equally partnered with Bank of Industry (BOI) in the disbursement of funds under the Power & Manufacturing Fund. It was also appointed among only four banks as a Primary Lending Institution (PLI) under the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) Scheme by Nigerian Maritime Administration & Safety Agency (NIMASA).

Analysts suggest that the Bank would continue to leverage its well-acknowledged cutting-edge Information & Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure for deployment in the areas of revenue collection, payment systems, and various e-banking platforms.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
Head Office: Skye Bank Plc.
3, Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Tel: + 234 1 2701600
Email:
www.skyebankng.com

TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS WILL BE EASILY OVERCOME
Saying technological limitations are more easily overcome might sound unrealistic because people could ask that if it can be that easy, why do we not have a perfect condition in Electronic Commerce? It must be noted that technological limitations refer to those factors caused because of imperfect conditions in the global technologies. Yes, I agree that there is never going to be a time when EC will be in a perfect condition, but the problems could be solved as soon as they are confirmed limiting factors. The US (DHS), in a bid to merge data from different sources and integrate the networks of 22 federal agencies having over 170,000 employees depended on Informatica to develop a system that would combine disparate systems to make information more widely accessible throughout the organization. Thus informatica has been able to live up to its promise that Informatica supports the expanding diversity of customers, partners, and their data with structured and unstructured data transformation, multi-enterprise visibility, and pre-emptive data quality Informatica.com (2009)

The case may be different with non-technological limitations because the factors are dependent on customer concerns, emotions, trust, public and legal issues, online fraud etc. It should be noted here that organizations can correct every fault that is caused by technological issues but customers emotions, perceptions and the likes are extraneous to ECs jurisdiction. The global community at large needs a gradual paradigm change towards certain developments in EC before success can be achieved in eradicating non technological limitations.

AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINES
Whoever knows Nigeria well will testify that the use of ATM is now a way by which customers are delighted with 24hr service on a daily basis throughout the year. It is therefore not surprising to know that every Bank in Nigeria strives to improve customer loyalty by serving the customers well through consistent and qualitative additional services at the ATMs. Though the ATM brought speed and satisfaction to customers transactions, some woes came with its advent. There are certain times when certain technological failures result in the trapping of customers cash meaning that the concerned customers account has been debited without cash dispense. Nigerian banks are improving daily on getting these errors reversed but the occasional anomaly has caused many Nigerians to decide against the use of ATMs or even web based payments. It is very evident that when Banks have succeeds in correcting the anomaly, it would take more time in correcting the mindset of the adamant Nigerians who believe that ATMs are used in enriching the banks by subtly debiting customers money without dispense. Valerie Anofochi (2009)

INSPECTION TEAM AT OCEANIC BANK
Another event I can remember happened one day when certain inspectors of Oceanic Bank asked me for hard copies of the branch account proofs. I told them I dont have it and hell was let loose. You know it is quite disheartening to know that in a world where every organization is going green, and even Oceanic Bank constantly reiterating the need to reduce cost through paperless banking. Some of the bank officials are not ready to benefit from the B2E EC facilities made available in the bank. I thought to myself these inspectors expect me to print 100 pages of paper on a monthly basis when I have my soft copies well kept in a backup server

CONCLUSION
Technological limitations are easily overcome than the non-technological ones because the cause can be defined and regularized by the community involved as they are noticed, whereas there is no way the community can fully understand the causes responsible for the non-technological limitation because it depends on people emotions and the likes. This means that it takes more to overcome non-technological limitations of electronic commerce than the technological limitations.