CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

“Habit” is a settled disposition or tendency to act in a certain way, especially one acquired by frequent repetition of the same act until it becomes almost or quite involuntary, a settled practice or established and regular standard of behaviour. Banking habit as used in this study, refers to the settled  practice or acquired tendency of patronizing the Banks by frequently utilizing the various services offered by banks and a widespread banking awareness.  Controlling of customer’s account as known today evolved from a rather humble beginning when the goldsmith discovered that only a small proportion of the money kept with him for safe custody was infact required by the depositors at any one time. He therefore developed a system of controlling the amount left with him and the amount led to other people.  The banking system which later inherited this found out that controlling is a major aspect of the management of customer’s account.

In view of the above, the Commercial Bank’s Customers account and later seeking ways to see if the standards are being operated as prescribed is known as controlling aspects for customers account. Indeed, commercial banks have been and are likely to remain the document financial intermediaries in Nigeria for they at present account for over 51% of the resources of the financial system tot he economy.  They therefore occupy a strategic position in the economy and are more than most other units or sub-sectors able in all respects to influence the course of development. No wander, notwithstanding the deregulation of the economy, banking is still one of the most controlled or regulated industry in Nigeria.

In the amendment to the monetary policy circular No. 21 of January, 1987, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) stated that “in order to further enhance and achieve a more efficient resources allocation, the following changes were made ….. all controls on interest rates were removed in line with the emphasis on deregulation of the economy.  This goes further to show the importance of commercial banks in the economic growth of the country, because inspite of the deregulation the entire economy, the banks are still constantly kept in guidelines of the Monetary Authorities. The 1957 report of J.B. Loynes of the Bank England paved the way for the establishment of the Central bank of Nigeria. This act was passed on 15th May, 1958 and the bank began operation on the 1st of July, 1959 with an authorized capital of N1.5million of which N1.25million was paid up.

1.2     STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS

Organizations are formed to achieve some of the organizational  goals. In a private or profit making as much s possible while public enterprises are mainly created to render services tot he public.  which ever role, the organization is set to achieve, it must need some resources to go about it.  Those resources includes money, man, material and machine. Usually, these resources are entrusted in the hands of some employees of the organization. The tendency is that some of the resources are misappropriated and the policy, rules and legal requirements not complied with. As a check on this, management may set up a controlling aspect, which will be charged with the responsibility of monitoring the activities of the employees and effecting management control. The application or to what extent these roles are carried out by the controlling arm of management is hence the problem which this work is set to investigation.  The study also centres on finding out how to improve the bank controlling policies of customer’s account as a means of increasing the chances of average Nigerians in opening an account with the commercial banks. In summary, the problem of this research is to find out the extent to which the sample back (CIB) has installed an adequate controlling system over customer’s account as a means of guarantee customers trust and patriotism.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This research work studies the controlling of customer’s Account by the commercial bank using Citizens International Bank as a case study.  More specifically, the objective of the study are: -

1. To find out the roles which management can play in controlling of customer’s account.

2. To find out the ways that the bank operates various customer’s account..

3.To find out the effect of not having a good management policy for controlling customer’s account.  

1.4   SIGNIFICANCE TO THE STUDY        

The significance of the study is that it will highlight the importance and consequences of not having an adequate design of controlling thing principles by the commercial bank. Some of the benefits that may accrue from this research work      are as follows: - Banks will benefit from this study through the increase in patronage of their services to their various customers.  The banks are in business to make profit and will face immediate collapse if their services are not patronized.  This study, by seeking the means of increasing patronage of the various bank services through improved controlling policies therefore has a lot of significance to the banking industry. The masses will equally benefit from this study because implementations of the findings and recommendations in this study will ultimately lead to improved standard of controlling customer’s account which will make the masses to have trust on the commercial banks.    

1.5   SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY        

This study basically covers the  controlling policies of commercial banks. However, the researcher being a student combining this research with other academic work and also as a result of other constraints such as communication barrier, time factor, money and so on, the scope of this study has been limited to only CIB Ltd. The researcher believes that the findings and recommendations made herein will be applicable to other commercial banks in Nigeria because the commercial banks of study has some features which are representative of a typical commercial bank in Nigeria.The researcher was faced with a number of problems in the process of carrying out this research study and much obstacles had contributed to the limitations of the entire research work.  Some of the constraints encountered includes:

(a).  SECRECY AND RELUCTANCE OF RESPONDENTS:   The unwillingness of the Bank officials to disclose some piece of information that are vital to this study which they classified as being secret.  They reminded the author of the professional and promised secrecy in their business ethics. The researcher tried many times to ascertain various piece of information from the bank but was turned back on the condition from Onitsha central the head office for south east 2. The researcher visited that branch and Enugu branch and this solved the problem to an extent.

(b).  TIME FACTOR:  Time was one of the greatest limiting factor in carrying out this research work because the research had be to carried out concurrently with the normal lecture hours.

(c).  FINANCE: Availability of funds certainly contributed in determining the researchers area and spread of investigations, obviously, the number of visits to the bank’s branch offices.  Secondly, prices of all materials needed for the work and its production had sky-rocked to almost 12 times their prices in the recent past due to inflation.  

(d).   LOW LITERATURE RATE: Banking education being relatively new in Nigeria, not much work has been done directly in the area of this study.  As a result, the researcher mainly relied on personal interview marathon lectures.  Inspite of all these constraints, it is hoped that this research study will make meaningful contributions into the controlling policies of customers account in Nigeria.    

1.6     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.  Do the control of customers account help the customers in any way

2.  Does it have any effect on the side of the bank?

3. Do you think that the measure mapped out by the commercial banks will help in any way to control or curtail fraud and irregularities in the bank?

4. Which of the measures – like the cuterial control, operations, customers services unit etc. do you think will be best for this control.

5. What are the hindrances to the commercial banks in controlling the customer account?

1.7   HYPOTHESIS        

There is one major hypothesis that forms the root of this study.  The findings will lead to acceptance or rejection of these hypothesis i.e. Null hypothesis (Ho) which will be rejected or accept the alternative hypothesis (Hi).  For the purpose of this study the under listed statement of hypothesis will be tested.

(i). Null hypothesis (Ho):  The control of customers account do not help the customers.  

(ii). Alternative hypothesis (Hi):     Control of customers account helps the customers.  

(i): Ho:   The controls has an effect on the side of the bank
Hi: The controls has no effect on their side.  

1.8   ASSUMPTION OF THE STUDY        

In compiling the findings from this study, it is assumed that all the information supplied by the people interviewed and that the responses are true and fair representation of their opinion about the issue raised.  

1.9     DEFINITION OF TERMS

1. BANK:      It is an establishment which deals with money, receiving it on deposit from customers honouring customer’s drawing against such deposit on demand, collecting cheques from customers and lending or investing surplus deposits until they are requested for payment.

2.  CBN: Central bank of Nigeria

3.  CIB: Citizens International Bank Limited

4.  ICAEW:  Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

REFERENCE  

Central Bank of Nigeria:  Annual Report and Account: 1987. Pg.8  
Gimson, A.C.: Oxford English Dictionary Oxford university press Hong Kong;Seventh edition, pg. 390.  

Onoh, J. K.: Money and Banking in Africa  Longman Inc. New York, pg. 62   Perry, P. C.:                    

A Dictionary of Banking  Mac Donald, Evans pg. 25.