Message From Founder

The Strength and the Pride in our Heritage

One often quoted sentiment of mine is the saying that “the new management team of FCMB and indeed First City Group should not ignore the foundation on which they are now building a new super-structure”.  I was also always quoted to be saying again that “any builder who ignores or abandons the foundation of the building will be doing so at his own peril”.   We should always be conscious of where we are coming from.  Our foundation here is the Heritage, that is, the legacy bequeathed to us by our founding fathers, which has given us the clout and the strong brand which everyone in the marketplace recognizes and many even respect.  What we should be trying to achieve is an evolution rather a revolution in building of our Institution.

Take for instance one example of our Heritage - a very solid foundation and sturdy structures as depicted by the columns in our office buildings.  These enduring features are now generally associated with any structure that harbours our institution, FCMB, the flagship of First City Group.

I usually hear statements from some friends and admirers of the bank that whenever they see a solid white building with columns, even without any signage, they assume that it must be an FCMB building.  Yes, this is true.  Those features are meant to symbolise some of our cherished values such as a solid foundation physical, classical and even spiritual because we always refer to God as the Foundation of the institutions that we are building.  Even the white colour depicts purity and transparency which are part of the hallmarks of our institutions.   We have endeavoured to use these features in conveying our uniqueness.  It is FCMB and not something like FCMB! 

Some less informed observers have even said that the buildings are beautiful but intimidating.  We immediately respond by saying, “No!”  We only need to encourage such people to buy-in into the motive behind our beautiful and enduring structures by inviting them to see our banking halls - the ambience, the sheer beauty of the layout, the welcoming smiles and the professionalism would immediately erase from their perception any idea of intimidation. 

We are projecting one of our fundamental and beautiful values - the Culture of Excellence in a permanent way.  Our beautiful and solid buildings are meant to endear us to our customers who appreciate beauty, and a thing of beauty is a joy forever.  We should encourage people to come and have a taste of our Culture of Excellence and the way we practise a world-class commercial and retail banking at its best.   We should go out to project the beauty of our values, the beauty of our Heritage, our Culture of Excellence, our professionalism, our integrity and transparency, our inimitable quality of service, our innovativeness and our resourcefulness as well as our always putting the client or the customer first. 

The unique architecture of our branches depicting the “Monument” is springing up everywhere.  Already we have nearly 30 branches in Lagos alone, and at the end of the current financial year we shall have over 120 branches all over the country.  All these make our founding fathers proud of our Heritage and the legacy they are bequeathing to us. 

We have our own way of doing things differently.  We are not arrogant nor are we over-bearingly self-conscious.  We just want to be different from others by doing our things differently.  We have also been able to establish that our entrepreneurial foundation has contributed in no small measure to the building of our institution to a world class standard.

We have been able to consolidate with three smaller banks, so seamlessly that areas of culture shocks have been minimized and not easily noticeable. 

Now as we march forward, confident of our being well equipped to cope with new challenges in an increasingly competitive environment, we join the new management of First City Group in welcoming everyone to experience the spirit of the new FCMB and the pride and faith we have in our Heritage of excellence and uniqueness.  Welcome to our world class brand of banking services.

OTUNBA MICHAEL O. BALOGUN, CON.
Founder