Intercontinental Bank holds 20 years celebration in Uyo

The 20th year anniversary celebration train of Intercontinental Bank Plc moves to Uyo with customers, shareholders and staff converging at the Le Meridian Hotel and Resort Centre, to celebrate 20 years of successful banking.
The 20th anniversary forum had been held in Kano, Enugu, Abuja and Lagos respectively with hordes of customers and eminent industrialists commending the bank for adding value to their businesses in the last 20 years of operation.
The bank was recently issued a clean bill of health by Renaissance capital and also received a positive analysis of its financials and overall operational stability from the Renaissance Capital, a leading emerging markets investment bank.
The research report confirms that Intercontinental Bank has enough capital to absorb current asset risks over the long term.
Intercontinental Bank is one of the new generation banks to have reached the exclusive top tier of Nigerian banks both in terms of asset base and deposits. The level of disclosure in the report makes it the first of its top piers to disclose such comprehensive information.
Dr. Erastus Akingbola, group chief executive Intercontinental Bank said   “Intercontinental Bank is committed to being the leader in providing full and accurate financial disclosure and we are pleased that Renaissance Capital acknowledges our bank as being at the forefront of strict corporate governance,”. 
The bank started operations in 1989 as a merchant bank when merchant banking and commercial banking dichotomy weighed heavily against the former.
It was able to remain among top banks by acquiring commercial banks to play big on both sides of the divide just before the dichotomy was abolished to pave way for universal banking. Coming from the disadvantages of merchant banking into the new terrain of commercial banking where its current competitors have been playing over a decade before it, the bank amass large retail customer base within a short time and actually surpassed its peers who have always enjoyed commercial banking many years before it.
At post consolidation, it emerged one of the top five banks in Nigeria hitting the number one position in many performance indicators.
With the consolidation of the banking industry in 2005, it emerged one of the biggest banks in Nigeria, a development later boosted by the Banker Magazine London’s rating of Intercontinental as the number five bank in Africa and among the top 500 in the world.
Intercontinental Bank has evolved into one of the largest and most diversified financial services Group in Nigeria with about ten subsidiaries in all sub-sectors of the financial sector.
Outside Nigeria, the Group operates as Intercontinental Bank Ghana Limited and Intercontinental Bank (UK) Limited which started operations in September 2008.