Sex For Deposits, Female Marketers Cry Out

Helen Asuquo (not real name) is a young, beautiful banker with the United Bank for Africa, UBA, Ikeja, Lagos. As a marketer in the bank, Asuquo said she had to use unconventional means, including sleeping with potential depositors, just to meet her quarterly target of N20 million. In a particular encounter to get a fat account, a wealthy man, after sleeping with her promised to fetch her juicier government accounts if she would spread the favour to his friends. After succeeding in meeting her obligation to her employers, her reward for such hard work was a harder target, which was N100 million. The idea by the banks to give high and unrealistic targets to female marketers is widespread, with some as high as N500 million to N1billion, failing which they are sacked. This unsavoury practice is foisted on the female marketers irrespective of their marital status.

In a bid to meet these targets, married marketers are trapped in a sex-for-account situation. It is rife for some married bankers removing their wedding bands while marketing. This act was corroborated by a Nigerian billionaire with vast business empire, who once told this medium how a female marketer secretly removed her wedding ring in his office, while trying to convince him to open an account with her bank. In spite of the challenge the helpless marketers face, there is no guarantee that their jobs are secured with the banks.

This is one of the unethical practices in the banking sector. Others are casualisation, improper outsourcing of the workforce, long hours of work without commensurate monetary reward, and being eased out of the system without terminal and other benefits .

In December last year, Sahara reporters, an online medium, published the experience of Evelyn Olisakwe Ukamaka, a married former marketer with Ecobank. Ukamaka, recounting an experience she had in 2008, said but for her boldness, she would have ended up a victim of the sex-for-deposit that now pervades the entire banking industry of the country.

According to her, the bank, that year, gave its marketers, including her, an unbelievable target in the form of deposits, “like they were hanging on trees and all we were to do was ‘pluck’ the monies. Most women told me horrific stories of how they had affairs with men and women alike, all in the name of getting deposits.”

The woman said, to meet her target, she had visited an oil magnate and member of her church to sell to him some of the bank’s services even though she was very sure marketers of other banks had also reached him.

She said after offering her a bottle of malt drink, the man, whose name she refused to mention, with a lewd smile brought a low chair and sat opposite her, his knees almost grazing hers. Her chest began to thump and she forgot all that she had composed to tell her about the services. “He didn’t give me a chance to catch my breath and confidence. My stomach quivered in fear. He knew this game well,” she said.

The businessman asked her how long she had been in the banking industry and she told him she was new. He then began to make promises of how he was going to shock her pleasantly with a whopping N100 million fixed deposit.

“Do you know if I call your MD and tell him I am going to give you N100,000,000 in fixed deposit you would be given double promotion? What even is your salary? Do you have an official car yet? I am going to shock you, baby. Just ask about me. Do you know how many ladies ‘chase’ me for deposit? I just like you,” he continued boasting.

As it turned out, however, it was the businessman who got the shock when the lady, apparently irritated, told him to shut up and hurriedly stepped out of the office.

This is just one out of the many unsavoury experiences of female bank staff whose task it is to market the services of the bank and bring in as many customers or face sack.

A female staff of one of the banks told this magazine in confidence that bank marketers are almost on the same pedestal with prostitutes. The only difference is that, while the bank staff dresses corporately with very short skirts that would get the proposed customer salivating and making promises under ‘duress’, prostitutes either hang out on the streets or brothels to get their customers. According to the lady, who works with Stanbic IBTC, once the target is fixed, it is left for the marketer to find the means to meet it. Those who can meet it are compensated, perhaps with promotion when the opportunity arises; those who can’t are either threatened endlessly or kicked into the labour market.

“It is no longer a big deal that marketers sleep with customers to meet targets. If any marketer tells you that she has not slept with a customer before, you have to run away from her because she is not telling you the truth,” the 34-year-old lady, who is still single, said.

She further revealed that, as obtains in most banks these days, a basic requirement for such job is beauty. In some cases, the female applicant is asked to forward a copy of her passport photograph and where she is found worthy, she faces the next step where she is tested on ability to speak fluently. Once she scales this, she gets the job.

“These days, they hardly conduct such difficult tests like it was done in the past, she disclosed. “Once you are beautiful and presentable, be sure of the job.”

Onobrorhie Deborah, a mother of two, is a contract staff with UBA. Despite having young kids to look after, she doesn’t return home until 8pm daily from work. Although the official closing hour is 5pm, she claimed that she is compelled to balance her account, which could take up to three to five hours, depending on the volume of the day’s transaction. Sadly, there are no commensurate benefits for the overtime done.

However, UBA is not alone in denying staff their required benefits for overtime. According to Comrade Danjuma Musa, President of the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees, NUBIFIE, the union has been  engaging all the banks on the issue of staff working overtime. “The normal closing hour is 5pm, but bank workers are not allowed to leave until very late at night, yet they are paid peanuts or not paid at all. I realised that Diamond Bank pays N200 for overtime irrespective the hours a worker spends after the official closing hours and distance between the office and where the worker resides,” Musa said.

Aside the aforementioned unwholesome acts, banks are also criticised for enslaving their workers through casualisation. This is said to be the reason they prevent staff from unionising, which Musa identified as a drawback to the union’s efforts at engaging the banks.

Comrade Sunday Olusoji Salako, President of the National Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions, ASSBIFI, blames the unfair treatment of workers in the banking sector, particularly junior staff, on the paucity of jobs despite the escalating number of able job seekers. He stated that it has made many applicants victims of banks aiming to cut cost by sourcing cheap labour. One way in which they do this is by employing Ordinary National Diploma, OND, holders who are paid peanuts, while ignoring those with Higher National Diploma, HND, and university degrees. This is made easy with the collusion of outstsourcing companies, which recruit workers on behalf of the banks.

 

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