Customs Street Advisors is a full service investor relations firm based in Lagos, Nigeria.

My Christmas wish: If I was the Head of Corporate Communications at Your Award-winning Nigerian Bank.

Once again, it is that time of the year when banks begin their feverish popularity contest with SMS alerts, full page ads and high street billboards announcing awards for Best This & Best That. Yet, in spite of the huge publicity these awards receive, neither the organizers nor recipients provide transparent metrics for assessing how winners emerge.

In recent years, Nigerian banks have received glittering awards for their performance and progress. For instance, at the 2008 Global Finance magazine’s annual awards ceremony for recognition of excellence in banking, Nigerian banks took home the following awards: Africa’s Lifetime Achievement in Banking Award (Otunba Subomi Balogun, Founder, FCMB), Banker of the Year (Tony Elumelu, Group Managing Director, UBA), Africa Bank of the Year (Intercontinental Bank), Africa’s Best Global Bank (Zenith Bank), and Africa’s Socially Responsible Bank of the Year (Fidelity Bank).

Curiously, the the website of Global Finance magazine does not include a description of rigorous criteria and survey methods used in the selection of winners, even though requirements for nomination are included. This is not to imply in any way that Global Finance magazine, which is widely respected in the industry, does not employ stringent vetting rules.

Most Nigerian bank websites have sections listing such awards. Examples can be found on the websites of First Bank, Zenith Bank, UBA Group, Oceanic Bank, Bank PHB, and Access Bank.

It would be helpful if the corporate communications and IR departments of these companies made available on their websites a link to the selection and review criteria for these awards. Such a publicly accessible report card would enhance the credibility of  the marking scheme, as well as the validity of these awards. Both the banks and the awarding institutions should have a serious interest in ensuring that the winner selection methods are as transparent and measurable as possible.

Instead, what one finds is a list of winners but little or no information on the specific metrics on the sites of institutions giving these awards.

Such omission risks reducing these awards to little more than PR fetishes, rather than the acknowledgment for excellence that they aspire to be.

We hope that the current turmoil in global markets, which has created a lot of uncertainty about the solidity of many financial institutions, including a lot of award winners, will inspire the awarding institutions and the recipients to publicly state the case for the necessity of these awards, and the metrics used for winner selection. Only then would our Christmas wish have come true.

Related posts:

1. Why do Nigerian companies neglect transaction value communications: A critical look at the aborted Zenon-AP merger and Bank PHB-Spring Bank acquisition. At the annual general meeting of African Petroleum (AP) held...
2. Rebel Yodel: Shareholders’ rallying cry in 2010 As the year draws to an end, it is tempting...
3. And the winners are Diamond Bank, FCMB, GTBank, Intercontinental Bank, Oando and UBA: How some Nigerian companies have taken the lead in online investor relations (1). In the first conference call of the FCMB Group, and...
4. And the winners are Diamond Bank, FCMB, GTBank, Intercontinental Bank, Oando and UBA: How some Nigerian companies have taken the lead in online investor relations (2). How do the investor relations sections of Nigerian company websites...
5. Under-used & Under-rated: Are Corporate Websites Wasting Assets? Everybody I know remembers where they were and what they...