FBN, GTB, Zenith, Access, UBA Top 500 Banking Brands

The Banker magazine revealed this in a statement yesterday in London.

According to Mr. Kunle Ogedengbe, the country representative of The Banker magazine, FirstBank was named as the most valuable banking brand in Nigeria in the report.

First Bank led four other Nigerian banks in the global ranking with a $301 million brand value, FirstBank ranked 357, followed by GTBank, which was ranked 395 with a brand value of $258 million. Zenith Bank was ranked 414 with a brand value of $247 million, Access Bank was in 476th place with a brand value of $182 million while UBA with a brand value of $172 million ranked 487 in the world.

According to the chief executive of Brand Finance, David Haigh, the brand value is the amount a third party will need to pay in using the brand name.

The editor of The Banker, Brian Caplen on explaining the approach for the ranking, said: “Brand Finance employs a discounted cashflow technique to discount estimated future royalties at an appropriate rate to arrive at a net present value of a bank’s trademark and associated intellectual property – its brand value.”

Caplen further explained that the approach involves five steps, which are obtaining brand-specific financial and revenue data; modeling the market to identify market demand and the position of individual banks in the context of all other market competitors; establishing the royalty rate for each bank; calculating the discounted rate specific to each bank, taking account of its size, geographical presence, reputation, gearing and brand rating; and discounting future royalty stream (explicit forecast and perpetuity periods) to a net present value – the brand value.

He said the approach was used for two reasons: “It is favoured by the tax authorities and the courts because it calculates brand value by reference to documented third-party transactions and it can be done based on publicly available financial information.”

Globally, deputy editor of the magazine, Joy Macknight said the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was number one with a brand value of $47.832 billion followed by Wells Fargo of the United States with a brand value of $41.618 million.

The top ten banking brands in the world were shared by four countries, China and the U.S. with four each while the United Kingdom and Spain got one each.

The other eight banks in the top ten were China Construction Bank, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of China, Bank of America, Agricultural Bank of China, Citibank (USA), HSBC (UK), and Satander (Spain).

Of the top 50 countries in the world, only four African countries made the list. These are South Africa (26), Nigeria (42), Egypt (46) and Morocco (47).

FirstBank was the only Nigerian bank in the top 10 banking brands in Africa along with nine others banks from South Africa, Egypt and Morocco.