By Sandra Adesiyan
The President/Chairman of Council of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Dr. Bayo Olugbemi, has expressed dissatisfaction over the rising cases of financial crimes in the country’s banking sector, saying it is time the judiciary embraced new technologies for its prosecution.
He also decried the continued abuse of court processes by delinquent borrowers. Besides well-known strategies to frustrate debt recovery efforts by employing different tactics to delay court proceedings, he said there are new efforts to convert loans ostensibly obtained for business purposes into foreign currency and moved to other countries.
Olugbemi said this yesterday at the 21st National Seminar on Banking and Allied Matters for Judges in Abuja. The seminar was themed, ‘Strengthening the quality of Judicial Systems and Banking Operations through Innovations’.
He argued that if creditors were getting more and more innovative in their attempts to evade legitimate legal obligations, judicial officers and regulatory authorities such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigerian Deposit Insurance Company (NDIC) should be more innovative in responding to such antics.
The administrator, the National Judicial Institute, Justice Salis Abdullahi, said the theme of the seminar was tailored towards addressing pertinent issues affecting the financial services sector.
He noted: ‘’We cannot shy away from the fact that numerous challenges are facing the financial services sector, among which is the interplay between financial technology and traditional banking, the complexities of this interface and their attendant consequences, which need the attention of all stakeholders.’’
In his goodwill message, the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, said that a deeper understanding, coupled with technological innovations, would improve the justice system.
