Ex-bank GM gives reasons for failure of thrift businesses

Former Bank General Manager and Managing Director of FundTrust Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Onitsha, Anambra State, Chief Silas Ifeanyi, has stated reasons there is high mortality rate in thrift business.

Chief Ifeanyi, who spoke to journalists after the end of a two-day road show in markets in and around Onitsha to celebrate three years’ of successful operation of the cooperative society by his company, listed the reason as lack of integrity in the discharge of services to the public, noting that some persons who engage in thrift business were not sincere, describing them as ‘pure fraudsters.’

He said lack of integrity on the part of the owners of some of the thrift outfits to discharge financial services to the public as well as inability of their customers to pay up their loan as at when due were also some of the reasons why the business went under.

He said: “Some just come into the business to defraud people. Their initial intent was not to serve the public. Some just came to steal”.

The former General Manager of former FSB, which later metamorphosed into Fidelity Bank, said this dishonesty was also found among the customers, saying that integrity and honesty are very expensive as some people who took loan default, hence the collapse of thrift companies.

Ifeanyi said however, said that his company has demonstrated enough integrity and trust in the last three years they have been in operation, hence the huge confidence reposed on them by their ever increasing customers.

He said in the last three years, they have moved from one branch to 10 branches located in various markets in and around Onitsha metropolis with about 150 workers.
Ifeanyi said his company was set up to bridge the gap in financial services delivery and to serve the people at the lower rung of the ladder.

He said: “We deal with the unbankable, people banks don’t talk to. We go to them and take their money and give them their money whenever they need it. We also give them loans. These are artisans, market women. We provide financial services to the poor. We give all sorts of loans, property loan. We mop up money and bring them to the bank. We provide services no bank can provide. We go and collect money and deliver it whenever they want it.”

Ifeanyi, who lamented the high mortality rate in thrift business, however attributed it to people who came into the business with money from customers as their capital.

He said they regard deposits as liability as they have their own capital they operate with, stressing the need for governments to educate the people about the danger of fraudulent thrift business by some operators as well as regulate the market since there is lack of regulation of the market now.

Alphonsus Nweze, Awka