First Bank, GTBank, Others Among top 500 Globally

• First Bank, GTBank, Others Among top 500 Globally

First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc and the United Bank for Africa Plc have been named among ‘The Top 500 Banking Brands’ of The Banker magazine of the Financial Times and Brand Finance, London, United Kingdom.

In a statement on Sunday by the Country Representative, Nigeria, The Banker magazine, Mr. Kunle Ogedengbe, First Bank led the four other Nigerian banks in the global ranking.

As a result, First Bank was named The Most Valuable Banking Brand in Nigeria in The Top 500 Banking Brands.

With $301m brand value, First Bank ranked 357, leading GTB which ranked 395 with a brand value of $258m; Zenith Bank ranked 414 with a brand value of $247m; Access Bank ranked 476 with a brand value of $182m; and UBA with a brand value of $172m ranked 487 in the world.

According to the Chief Executive Officer, Brand Finance, David Haigh, the brand value is the amount a third party will need to pay in using the brand name.

As for the methodology of the ranking, the Editor, The Banker magazine, Brian Caplen, was quoted as saying, “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.”

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