By Stanley Opara and Ronke Badmus

EMPLOYEES of Deposit Money Banks are currently groaning under the weight of significant pay cuts, occasioned by the liquidity crisis in the capital and money markets, investigation by our correspondents has shown.

The situation, according to our correspondents’ findings, has made jobs in the banking industry that were once considered highly lucrative, to be less attractive to a lot of job seekers.

It was discovered that since the banking reforms commenced with the sacking of the management of eight banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the DMBs had adopted cost cutting measures with cuts in workers’ remuneration as a major target.

While it was gathered that the rescued banks had slashed workers’ salaries by between 10 per cent and 50 per cent, the other “strong” banks had not been left out of the salary reduction frenzy.

Our correspondents, who spoke with some bank workers in Lagos on Monday and Tuesday, gathered that aside from the mass retrenchment of employees, which accompanied the crisis in the sector, some banks had also stopped giving loans to employees without considering performance.

The bankers noted that, though the salaries were regular, they had been slashed to a point where they could not really “take us home.”

Many of those interviewed, however, said that they were satisfied with lower salaries as long as they were not sacked.

A banker in one of the rescued banks, who spoke to one of our correspondents on the condition of anonymity, said that since there was no alternative job, it was better to make do with what the banks could offer.

Speaking about his employer, he said the news of investors wanting to buy the bank had instilled fear in the workers, and issues like pay cuts were seen as trivial compared to possible staff disengagement.

An employee of a rescued bank, which recently applied for a regional banking licence, said there had not been any increase in her salary since the commencement of the banking crisis.

“I have not had any increment in my salary since I joined the bank in 2008. The monthly take-home of a graduate trainee is just slightly above N61,000,” she added.

Our correspondents gathered at one of the old generation banks that there were differences in the salaries of workers, who were on the same level and performing the same function. It was also learnt that the average annual fixed remuneration had dropped from N2.5m to N2.2m, while the balance had been tied to performance.

“Because the conditions set by the bank are, to a large extent, unrealistic, we don’t even consider fighting for the N300,000 balance,” a source in the bank told one of our correspondents.

One of the “strong” banks, it was learnt, had resorted mainly to contracted employment.

An official of the bank, who spoke in confidence to one of our correspondents, said, “Over 60 per cent of employment in the bank is on contract basis.”

A worker at another new generation bank said that before the banking crisis, the average salary for his level was about N150,000 monthly, but added that “now, workers on the same level take home about N110,000.”

The 1st National Deputy President, Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions, Mr. Olusoji Salako, who confirmed the development to one of our correspondents, said there had been major salary cuts in the banking industry since 2009 when the crisis began.

But he noted that aside from the troubled banks, some healthy ones were still cutting the salaries of their workers and were doing that with some form of subtleness.

“These banks do this but you will not know. They are very clever and you won’t be able to discover. Now, some set targets and link workers’ pay to performance. This, however, is very relative,” he explained.

However, all the banks contacted denied the pay cuts.

Officials of the corporate affairs units of Spring Bank Plc and Diamond Bank Plc, who did not want their names mentioned, denied the development, describing it as false.

A source at GTBank, who would not say if the development was true or false, maintained that he needed to get an official confirmation from the Human Relations Department of the bank.

The Head, Corporate Affairs, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Mr. Francis Barde, said the bank had issues of different salary scales for same job levels in the past.

He said the bank had, to a large extent, corrected the anomaly and added that the figures given by the workers might not be accurate.

Source: Punch