Access Holdings PLC has made clarification and justified its high cost-to-income ratio, saying it is still relatively high because of its necessary investments in various aspects of its growth and expansion that will yield huge benefits in the short to medium term.
In making this justification, Access Holdings PLC, one of Africa’s leading financial institutions noted that investing in growth and expansion of Access Bank PLC, its banking group, with huge financial commitment to robust infrastructure- physical and technology- are part of a comprehensive strategy to consolidate the company’s presence across major global markets and make it more viable and profitable.
This clarification was made at a recent media roundtable, where Access Holdings’ leadership, including Ms. Bolaji Agbede, the Acting GCEO of Access Holdings; Roosevelt Ogbonna, Group Managing Director/CEO of Access Bank Plc; Dave Uduanu, Managing Director of Access Pensions; Kemi Okusanya, Managing Director of Hydrogen Payments; Khade Idogho, and other Executive Directors, shared key initiatives that reinforce the Group’s vision for sustainable, global impact.
In his presentation, Ogbonna said while agreeing that the banking group’s cost to income ratio was high, such costs were necessary and one-off that would enable it scale up its operations and take its pride of place in financial services offerings in Africa and the World.
According to him, the cost may remain elevated for a while, but ultimately, it would come down. “They say, ‘your cost income ratio is high’. Yes, I agree it is high, but I’m making the investment this year
. We’re going to spend $80 million on technology. That’s the cost that I’m hoping I don’t have to repeat next year or the year after.
But guess what? It means that I can process 200 million transactions per second. So, I’m not building for today. “Today I don’t even have 20 million customers. I have 65 million customers, and the projection is by 2027, I have 125 million customers, but I’m projecting 200 million transactions per second. And how do we count transactions today?
