[MUSIC]
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Of course my name is Prince Kofi Amoabeng,
and
let me just say that I'm, I feel quite
honored to be here.
From my humble beginnings from a village
in Africa somewhere, and to be
invited by Stanford University to come and
share experiences it's a great honor, and
I thank everyone here for this great
honor.
Can you all hear me?
If you can't hear me, just raise your
hand.
I probably move a bit, or signal that the
sound should come up.
Well, everything starts from childhood.
You have a chance to come into the world,
and you have to make an impact.
So, and it sort of dovetails into whatever
you do as you grow up.
So I'll just give you a little bit about
my background, as in,
how I was brought up.
I was born to, born on the east region of
Ghana, and
born to a fam, my mom was a farmer and dad
was a cocoa purchasing officer.
And my dad was a very interesting guy.
Early days that I remember, he would,
he saw me trying to steal a beer from an
empty bottle.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And he said why are you doing that?
And of course as a kid I was [UNKNOWN]
maybe four or five years old and looking.
And he says get some beer to drink.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And I mean yeah he probably would have
arrested but poured me about a third of a
glass.
And I drank it, and I got drunk.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And then, when he gets visitor,
he tells me, you want to serve the visitor
some beer?
And I say, yeah, why not?
And I'll go, and get the beer, open it up,
serve the visitor, and
serve myself, if he's not there.
And I'll be waiting with the visitor.
And those days, just for the sake of it,
we had a gramophone.
So, just wind it, and I put a hat on, and
I learned to tend to this stuff.
In other words, what I'm trying to say,
he gave me the leeway, but any time I went
out of bounds, he clipped it.
And he used to beat me if I really went
out of bounds, and things like that.
But he decided that
he will give me the better education
because he did not get it.
And he was quite brilliant I met a mate of
his, who was a professor.
And the mate said your father was a
brilliant mathematician but
of course he didn't get the chance to
become a professor like me.
And before that, my dad used to say that
he was brilliant but
everybody's dad is brilliant you know but
[UNKNOWN].
[LAUGH] Anyway, so I went to, through
school, normal kid.
And I remember something else, when we
moved to my village,
which is very long name.
For the sake of [FOREIGN] That's how it's
called.
You know [FOREIGN]?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay, fantastic.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Now, when we move there and this is
early, early, long ago.
I was the only guy who was wear, wearing
sandals to school.
And I went to school the first day and
everyone started coming to
see the guy who's wearing some funny thing
on his feet.
And I was very uncomfortable, so I just
took off the sandals and hid the sandals.
And every day, when I'm dressed up to go
to school.
Just for the school, I'll take my canvas
off my feet and
hide it some banana plantation.
So, I'll be like an ordinary kid.
One day, unfortunately, my mom came to, to
school.
And first was, where your sandals?
And everyone's looking.
This guy's never worn sandals in this
school.
[LAUGH]
And of course, I got some beatings and
they dragged me all the way home.
And my dad was there.
As soon as my dad saw the confusion, I
think honestly he said, come, come,
come, come.
We have an issue, I said, yes we have an
issue.
[LAUGH] Then says what happened to your
sandals?
I said, nobody wears sandals.
Nobody.
So, I was feeling a bit awkward.
And he took his time and said.
Would you want everyone in that class to
be wearing sandals?
I said, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
So, you know it's good?
I say, yes.
>> They say,
well, you can have them by wearing yours,
and I'm sure by the next time,
some parent will buy sandals for their
kid, because you are taking the lead.
And I said, yeah, but in the meantime, I'm
[UNKNOWN].
>> [LAUGH].
>> But anyway.
So, reluctantly, I wore my sandals to
school, and everybody was looking at me,
and true to his word, by [UNKNOWN] about
two or
three people who were also wearing
sandals.
Anyway, then I moved on to secondary
school and university like any normal kid.
Except I was a bit on the wayward side
more than being the straight and proper.
But my dad, told me at one stage, he says,
listen, let's have a bet.
And I said, oh, what, what is the bet for?
He says, well it's difficult to pay your
fees,
I'm trying to get you the best of
education.
And you must promise me that you always
bring good grades home, and
I will also promise you that I will never
fail in paying your fees.
And I said, well this is easy.
So I pass and you pay.
He said yes, and we shook hands on it.
I was probably about 13.
And you know what I did?
I will be with all the bad guys in school,
but two weeks with them, I must live with
that old one because I respected him and I
loved him, and I could not disappoint him.
So, until I finished university, I thought
I was learning for the old man.
I didn't know I was learning for myself.
And most of my friends fell by the wayside
because they didn't have some
strong person who could keep them on the
right track.
But my dad was there for me.
And so I finished university.
And I had second class upper,
I did BSE Admin in the Ghana's premier
university, which is Legon.
And when I finished university, then it
became very interesting.
I was doing national service,
I was paid 155 cides, I don't know how
much dollars it is.
By the ninth of the month, my money was
finished.
Because I was doing also the things.
>> [LAUGH].
>> I got to night club and move to other
night club and
by six o'clock I go to last night club.
So by the ninth, my money was finished.
And I was asking myself how am I going to
get disciplined,
how am I going to be successful like the
people that I see.
Then one day I saw an advert, admissions
into Ghana armed forces and
of course I didn't like the army, zombie
and
all sort of things but I read it anyway
now when I I read it it said.
Officers has wanted, manager officers
wanted.
And I asked some guy, what do they get?
What do they pay them?
Said well, you go in there.
You certainly have three square meals a
day because they feed you breakfast,
lunch and dinner.
You're given a room, which is furnished
already.
You paid a salary, and I said, bingo.
I don't have any responsibility.
Just present myself, three square meals a
day,
if my pay gets finished, I will still eat
anyway, I'll still have my room.
And there's nothing better than that.
So, to the army I went.
That was the only evolution.
And I joined the army, I regret it
initially but I enjoyed it.
And once I was in the army, I had the
chance to take an exam and
after the exam I was given the chance to
go to UK to become a chartered accountant.
It took me one and a half years to become
a chartered accountant.
And I came back and I was the only
chartered accountant.
And with a good degree to, to put in the
Ghana armed forces.
But in the army, it's not about what you
know that gives you a responsibility.
Because colonels and above were heads of
[UNKNOWN] and other things.
And even though they were no qualified
accountants, and
I was qualified accountant, I was still a
pay master.
And I had to report to so many levels
before it gets to them.
And I was complaining, I said well,
I'm not being allowed to use my
qualification, things like that.
But they found a place for me.
But soon as I got back from London, when I
was in London,
there was the first revolution in Ghana,
this about 79.
June 79.
And I wasn't willing to come back to
Ghana.
By then they handed it over to civilian
governments just in three months.
So I came back, and when I got back, the
army had been turned upside down.
Because the coup was organized by junior
officers and other ranks and
overthrew the hierarchy.
It was, at best it was a mutiny, and I
wasn't too happy with it.
I said, okay.
I will stay and let us turn things around.
This was about 1980, 81.
And they, there was another coup in 1981.
And I said, enough is enough.
I need to leave.
So, I left the armed forces in 1982 just
because I was disatis,
satisfied with the whole process.
Now what was I going to do cuz I just left
no plans.
I went to Nigeria of course most Ghanians
were in Nigeria at the time teaching.
I don't like it.
I went to Libera because I had some, some
job offer I didn't like it.
I went back to London.
And I went to a mate of mine, and I said I
need to come and settle here in London.
He said well, you know, you don't have the
right papers so
we can probably find some bookkeeping job
for you.
And I said, Louie, but I was smarter than
you in class and you're an accountant.
[LAUGH] And he said you don't belong here
and, and, and so
that's the best we can do for you.
And I said thank you very much, I go back
to Ghana and I had no other option but
to try and fend for myself.
My next door neighbor was a businessman,
well I'm a business student, so
I teamed up with him.
I wa, I was just under his tutelage
because if he's going to
collect his check, I went with him.
He's going to buy something, I went with
him.
And then it's like, okay Prince you can go
and
try your hand here and there, so I start a
business.
Long story short, I did all kinds of
businesses.
I was doing simple buying and selling like
a general merchant.
I was into timber, saw milling and the
rest.
I was doing imports of wines, of wo, floor
tiles of hard stuff like
anything anything that had a margin I
would do it.
I, I know was decent [LAUGH] I better add
that.
And then I was in air conditioning
business.
I was teaching at the Ghana Stock
Exchange.
I was I was in oil business, both
downstream and midstream.
And a lot of the businesses, I failed in
them.
But I learned my lessons from them and
moved on.
And some of them I did fairly well but
then at some point in time I just lose
it either I, because I don't agree with my
friends or my partner or something.
Then finally about 1990, 5, 96.
I really hate very low position, but
my wife at the time left with me with the
kids.
And I didn't have a, a permanent job.
I was still a roving businessman.
And she left with everything in the, in
the ho, in the house.
And it was really a disgrace and I saying,
after so
many years I was then about 44 years and
at 44 you don't have a home,
you don't have your kids you don't have a
business that is thriving and
I said I better find something to do and
do really quick.
So I started, you know, be more aggressive
with business and
be more focused to business.
And what happened was, any time I went to
the banks, and
I had good opportunities, the banks were
not there for me.
Either they waste so much time, I lose the
business completely.
All they'll approve and tell me that okay
you applied for
maybe $20,000 but we can give you $3,000.
And I'll asked them, why?
Because it's a specific amount for
a specific job and I need exactly what I'm
asking.
And then I was reflecting.
Here I was, I had a good degree in
business.
I was a chartered accountant, I was even a
lecturer at the stock exchange and
I had done business for 12, 14 years and I
was a military, ex-military man so
quite disciplined and I should appeal to
everybody and
when I say yes I mean yes and I still
couldn't raise money.
And I was fighting them, and we had our
quarrels and things.
One, I think one thing led to another, and
I said, wait a minute.
If I cannot raise money from the banks,
then I'm wondering who can raise money
from the banks.
And this is Africa.
There are not too many people with
qualification, and, and experience and
things like that.
So I said, well I think, there is a
serious gap here, and
I should look at providing financing for
the SME sector that is, people like me.
In economies of Africa, about 80% of the
economy resides in the informal sector.
That's, basically, the small, medium sized
enterprises and things like that.
And, I was reflecting I'm saying, really
really I must understand the banks because
a bank is a formal institution with so
many years of development and everything.
And we say we're in the informal sector,
so
really there's a disconnect straightaway
by definition.
How can a formal institution serve an
informal setup?
So I said, let's form a company and
understand this informal, huge informal
sector and see how we can lend to them,
because the banks are failing them from
this experience that we had.
And that is how the UT story began.
In 1996, 97, we've got alliances from the
central bank.
And myself and three young, not so
qualified people, we decided that rule set
up a company.
And we had a one room office in the not so
good part of Accra.
And the office, it's the,
as shot is not too close, there used to be
water logged in front here.
And the office started from this corner.
Just one room, with a big table there.
And we all would sit by this table, and
were thinking.
What can we do?
What do we have?
And the total assets of the company at
that time was at best maybe $20,000.
Just, and the, the equipment was coming
from my partner.
My partner was running, that, in that
corner a communication center where
people come and make calls, and send
telexes, and fax, and things like that.
So those became the equipments we had in
the office.
And I threw in my car and a few things.
And my driver became one of the three who
was the employees of the company.
So the thing is,
I'm sure you want to know about the kind
of challenges that we had at the time.
Of course, we had all sort of times,
challenges you can imagine, but generally
in Africa, I think the challenges come
from broadly speaking two areas.
One is this infrastructure that's
governments must put in place for
businesses to thrive.
This wasn't there.
And then the other one is the culture of
the people that you have to
deal with as your customers and your staff
and things like that.
And when it comes to Africa, the
culture,our cultures really plays its
part in creating the kind of people that
we are.
Now, on the government's side in Ghana for
example, we don't have addresses.
Addresses they might think number five
whatever road and this is, is absent.
So eh, if you're trying to lend, it means
you must find your own ways of
identifying where the houses are, where
the offices are, and things like that,
because the roads are not named, and the
houses are not numbered.
Also we have a system where the police can
be corrupted, or
they are corrupt, to some extent, and the
courts are not delivering justice on time.
And to lend, you need the police, you need
the courts, you need to have addresses, so
those track sheets are not there.
And to connect from me being someone who's
giving us
his experience in Ghana this afternoon,
some roads may be a hundred miles.
It would take you about 5 to 7 hours to go
100, 100 miles.
So those were some of the challe,
challenges that we had from lack of fi,
structures and infrastructure.
But the other problem, the problem with
our, the quota of Ghanaians or
generally Africans, because when we start
businesses,
we look at the businesses as an extension
of the individual.
So, if I start a business, as an owner of
a business,
I'm not different from the business.
The business' money is my money, if I need
something I just dip my hands in,
take the money and spend it as I want.
And therefore, in trying to serve this
sector, we had to actually find ways and
means of disbursing these monies, and
monitoring the monies and
making sure that we can collect the
monies.
We also had other problems like getting
the trust of the people for
them to lend us their monies because the
banks would not give us any monies.
They didn't understand what we were about.
They had never been there for us, so we
had all sort of challenges.
But then what we did was,
where we had the problems we had to be
quite innovative to find ways around it.
For example, with our address system.
One day I heard that some of my staff, we
were about eight at the time, had
collected monies from some of the clients
and shared the monies amongst themselves.
And I got so mad, I sacked everybody.
So, from a staff of eight we go to a staff
of one, myself.
And I'll say, how do I then know where the
debtors lived?
Because the guys who knew where the
debtors lived had all been sacked, so
I had to eat the humble pie and call two
people and give them strong warning and
say next time but really it wasn't,
I didn't have a choice, I had to give them
another chance.
And then they, with their, with their
help,
were able to put some of these debtors
back on track.
And then immediately I pulled the whole
team into our war room and
I said, we're going to learn a bit of
geography.
Everyone will learn how to sketch from a
point to another point.
So if you, if you go to a client, you find
a point which is easily,
which can be referred to easily, let's say
[UNKNOWN] or some kind of runabout or
something and you would sketch from that
point to the house of the client.
And then we had our own keys, as in broken
line means untarred road.
A straight, unbroken line means that road
is tarred and
then we had triangle meaning a billboard
and so on and so forth.
And for every loan you have to sketch to
the house of the,
of the client, give me another sketch to
the collateral and
give another sketch to the offices if, if
these three things are different.
And so we, it's not only about the
addresses.
Any time we find a problem we have to sit
down and strategize and
see how we can really mitigate those
risks.
Because the government will say that
because somebody owes you,
I'm going to name that particular road for
you.
You have to find the solutions yourself.
Now, with these kind of attitude.
And it was because there was a lot of yo,
loyalty to the company.
I was sitting right with them.
And the values and everything actually
came from me.
And I had to infect them with it for us to
do a good job.
Now, from then on, we grew slowly and at
quite a good pace.
And then, we were also challenged by the
regulators.
At some point in time, we decided that we
wanted to new branch in Tima,
which is about maybe 25 kilometers from
our crowd, that's a port area.
And the regulator did not want us to have
a branch.
And I read the policies of the central
bank, and it says
if you should open an office, you should
inform the central bank within 21 days.
But the operators were saying you have to
take a authorization from us.
So I just, I checked.
Talk to lawyers, and I said, what's the
true position?
He said, listen, really, the law as, as
written black and
white, says you should inform them.
But they will certainly not let you open
an office.
So I said, go ahead and let's open an
office.
So when they open an office in Tima and
they heard about it and they came for
inspection and they said some of your
files are not here, so
we don't have the complete business.
I said well, that is true.
Some of the files are in Tema.
Why have you opened an office in Tema?
I said, well, because some of the business
is in Tema.
You are not supposed to have a branch in
Tema.
I said, I don't have a branch in Tema.
So what office is that, I say it's the
liaison office.
[LAUGH] And they said, what do you mean a
liaison office?
I said liaison, I mean hopefully in
addition you see liaison office.
And in time, they started referring to it
as UT's branch in Tema.
So they accepted it without unconsciously
accepted.
And quickly we opened up two more branches
in Thomase and Takwade.
[LAUGH] And they, they had to accept
because they have said one branch,
we are putting other branches.
And we grew to a point where we had, we're
the only non bank that had branches.
And we grew to a point where we had about
16 branches scattered all,
all over the southern part of, of Ghana.
Now, our service to the people was so
successful, and really,
the unique selling point proposition was
that, and
this is a bit of ironical, because if you
look at the SME informal sector,
this is the group that probably don't
speak even too much English.
They're not, the owner is probably not
qualified in, as in having a degree or
anything, they don't have qualified people
in the company,
they don't keep good books of accounts.
They want to hide their monies, and not
declare.
And therefore, they cannot plan for say a
month or two months.
Now, so they needed the financing or
funding in the quickest possible time.
So a typical non bank or, sorry,
a typical informal sector person or SME
comes to you and he says I need $10,000.
He means now.
Because somebody's trying, is standing
outside his shop trying to supply me with,
him or her with some goods.
So you must find a way of financing them
as quickly as possible.
And that was a challenge.
I suppose, to incorporate with the right
structures because they can plan and
budget and see when they did the money, so
they probably don't need it that fast.
So here we were.
The banks were probably usually about two
months to give a loan to
companies with all the right structures in
the four months they took.
And here we have the informal sector,
which hasn't got all the structures and
is the riskier part of the sector and they
rather need the money faster.
Now to a normal banker, if you are riskier
they have to take more time not less time.
So what we had to do was to find a way of
giving loans to
these informal sector operators in the
shortest possible time.
So I remember one point in time I called
my staff and said, we have a problem,
if we don't do the loans fast enough our
clients will lose their business.
So how can we cut the loan delivery
period?
And, we actually said, let's go through
all the,
the credit processes from the time the
clients calls in
the office to the time we're able to give
the client the money.
Okay, the client comes to the office, what
does the client do?
He probably sees an officer in the bank
and
tells the bank the problem, come back with
application letter and on and on.
And we started cutting the processes down.
And I said, let's aim at one week delivery
time.
That is from the time the client comes in
to
the time they get their loan is one week.
And they said it's not possible.
I said let's look at, lets try because if
you don't,
we're not able to achieve that, we're not
serving the clients well.
Now, it's surprising to notice that even
before your
application gets to your branch manager
that's probably by a month.
Because you come and tell the project
officer the risk manager, and
they listen to your story, they go
forwards and backwards and
try to capture it, and then they wait for
the nes, the branch manager to come in and
accept it, and it goes to the credit, to
appraisal committee, whatever.
So we said, okay, no one should come to us
with an application.
Don't.
Just walk to us if you are in need of
money, and come and tell us your story.
So from the reception, you came to me.
And I was the MD and branch manager all in
one.
Because we had only one one branch.
[LAUGH] Now, so what it took was, I would
just listen.
Because really, if we're not going to do
the loan for
you we don't have to waste your time.
So I'll listen and tell you that thanks
for coming to see us and
next time you have a, b, c, and d and
please come back and we can do some
business, but for now you don't qualify.
And I loved that because I saved people
their time.
Instead of going to the bank for
about two months only to be told that
you're not going to get the money,
we use five minutes times two, maybe ten
minutes at most.
And we tell you sorry we can't do it.
And where I think that yes, there's some
business that we can do,
I hand you right to the team.
And the team will now take the full story.
And move with you the same day, or
if it's late in the day, the next day to
go and quickly do the assessments.
Feel the pulse of the business.
Not give us five years of accounts or
detailed accounts, but come and
feel the business.
And we extract the figures as in the stock
level, sales per week, per day, per month.
Your checkbook will give us some
information.
Any register you have will give us some
information.
And they will bring back to the office a
statement or a face of the business.
And that informed us about the collateral
and
things that you have, as to whether to do
the loan or not.
Now, interestingly enough, other things
that we have to do is like if you have to
value the collateral, put valuation to the
collateral, you need an expert,
a professional, who's good at evaluation.
And it can take about three weeks or one
month to get a good report, bound,
with a picture and [UNKNOWN] market value
and all that.
And we ask ourselves, do you really need a
valuation report to do a loan?
Obviously, no.
What you need, is a,
is a professional job, telling you the
value of the collateral.
So we were debating about it, and I said,
the surest way is to employ a val, a
valuer.
So UT then employed a valuer.
So the valuer will go to the property-wise
you read in a report.
And then you call me and say, Chief and
I'll say, Yes.
The property is $100,000 plus or minus
$10,000.
And that's all you need, really, to
evaluate.
Because he was in our employment,
we could rely on it instead of going for
somebody else.
So these were some of the things that we
had to put in place to really cut down
the, the, the, the loan time.
And as soon as we're able to cut it down
to one week, I challenged them.
I said, let's cut it to two days.
And that really sounded crazy.
But we're able to cut it down to two days.
And in the process, we had to build other
structures and institutions in it.
So, we now hit the market and said, UT
Financial Services, your loan in 48 hours.
And the competition was saying oh these
guys are crazy.
It's not possible.
And people came to us and experienced it
that we were able to do loans for
them in 48 hours or less.
And that's just not for banks who were
coming for
repeat loans, it could be one hour.
Because you had the collateral in place.
And people come and deposit the collateral
and said, keep it.
I need money.
They take it, they go, come back and
say, my collateral is already there, I
haven't moved it.
And we had, repetitive clients and so on,
so forth.
Now, the company grew in about 10 years to
11 years.
In 2008, we went for a strategy session
and
we said, we're still not providing all the
financial services.
The crucial part is the lending.
But some clients who come to us, take a
loan of say, $100,000 and go to
their bankers with the money and ask for
an LC to be, to be established for them.
And that could take about a week.
I wanna say, if we give the money in 48
hours, and the bank would take
about a week, two weeks, to establish an
LC against that money.
Then surely, they're taking advantage of
our clients.
So we need to become a bank.
And the challenge was to become a bank.
And still have the speed and the
flexibility, and
be able to meet regulatory requirements
and so on and so forth.
Now what we did was, and
most of this with a company that started
with total assets of $20,000 odd.
What we decided to go to stock exchange,
in ten years time after that.
We had a [UNKNOWN] position of $90
billion, and
it's because we invest everything back
into the company.
When I wasn't being paid any serious
money, we never paid dividends to anybody.
We put the money back and grew the
business.
Now when we go to the bank the challenges
were different,
it's not regulatory matters.
And one thing I always say about the
regulator is
it's like a big [INAUDIBLE] truck on on a
very narrow road.
If you stay behind a truck.
You have to go at the truck's pace.
If you stay by the side,
because the road is narrow, it will push
you off into a ditch.
The only way for you to go is to stay
ahead of that truck.
But once you're ahead of that truck,
make sure you don't break down because if
you break down it will run over you.
>> [LAUGH]
>> And that's been a policy of UT.
Dealing with regulator.
We always stay ahead by making sure we
don't make any mistakes.
And we run fast enough to keep enough
pace.
So I want to actually show you this slide.
Now, in doing business.
And I met Professor Jim Bartel.
And he said, what is it he's talking about
business, what he needs
to know with everyone is their commitment
or their passion that they have.
And he wishes that they have two
lecturers,
they can connect their chests to test if
they have the passion or the commitment.
I, think the same.
I think what really make everything happen
is the passion you have for the job.
Now, since this is an institution of
learning,
I want to share what I believe creates the
passion or brings out the passion.
And you should look for it.
To have passion for the think about
anything that you're doing.
One, you must have love.
Two, must have two types of love.
One love is just love for people, love for
humanity.
That comes from your upbringing.
You should have the right values and
things like that.
You must be people who respects other
people, and wants to see people develop.
You must be that type.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
So you must have love for people.
The second love is, and this is what you
have to look out for,
you must have love for a service, or a
product.
It may not come now.
You probably have missed it, but it may
come back again.
As you try your hands on other businesses,
you find a product or a service and
you fall in love with it.
Because of what it can do to people.
And you mush that love and said this is
what the people I love need.
So you take the love for the [UNKNOWN]
product,
and try to make that available to the
people that you love.
And in the intersection is where you have,
passion.
Love for [UNKNOWN] products, and love for
people.
And that brings out the passion.
I would wake up in the morning, and I knew
what these laws would do for
these people and their families, and the
workers, and everything.
And for eight years, I didn't go for one
days leave.
No leave for eight years.
I would jump out of my bed and I'm going
to look for money and
I'm going to save it on other people and
collect my monies back.
And to finish that part
when I was well the company was about 15
years old I'd gone on leave eight days.
And I said, this is not fair.
I haven't been fair to myself, so I have
to go on seven more days leave.
So it will be 15 days for 15 years.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Well it came out of the passion that I
had.
I knew what the laws were doing for this
sector.
And I loved it.
And,
and, and therefore I loved the, the
lending.
And I loved what it was doing to the
people.
And therefore, it gave me the passion.
Now on, on the, on the services side, the
kinds products that you give them.
Or the processes and the profitability,
which insures the sustainability.
On the People side is where you have your
customers.
The feel for your customers, the feel for
the people that is your staff and
things like that, and the values that,
that, that are generated.
So these are for the right side, the
services where you have product,
processes, packaging, consistency,
structure, and things like that.
That's is ten of the kinda services that
you provide.
And the top is really about the people,
the customers and your own people.
And these are the critical success
factors.
You must have good customers, you must
have good people delivering the services.
You must have good services and then of
course might have the processes that
deliver the products and things like that.
So, as you go about.
Ask yourself, do I really love people?
If you have to, if you love people,
generally,
you have the right values [INAUDIBLE] as
people who respect everyone.
You've had one of the love issues.
Now, you get into business.
You get, you meet, you see all kinda
products and services.
See the one that you, you fall in love
with.
And this afternoon one of the interns were
talking about a guy who started Cocoa,
Cocoa, Cocoa Safaries.
It's a breakfast thing.
And the guy just says this breakfast, if
you take in the morning, it's so
nutritious and I want people to taste it.
So he has enough for
the Cocoa and he's supplying people to
make sure that they benefit from it.
And it's in good business.
It can be anything.
If you think water is what is most
important to people, then therefore,
you want to give them pure water.
You can start a water factory tomorrow.
And you'll be successful.
Because you keep thinking about how to
better it, how to improve upon it so
it affects a lot of people, and so on and
so forth.
Now, I'm moving fast forward because I'm
checking my time and I have 30 minutes and
I'm almost at the end of it.
I'm not too happy about it but I'm
enjoying it.
I hope you are.
[LAUGH].
Now, this slide here is talking about the
present UT.
What we have now.
It will tell you that because we wanted
speed, and to deliver the loans
in a very timely manner, we had to create
institutions to handle it.
And therefore, by default, we created a
logistics company.
And by default again [UNKNOWN] company was
actually helping the,
the financial services in, in financing
importers.
Then by default we put our UT properties
company because we need evaluators,
we needed people who do property
management.
And we also had UT Collections.
Because our collections were so effective
other banks and
financial institutions were asking us to
collect their monies for them.
Then we have UT Life Insurance.
Because where the guys don't have
collateral or
anything you actually tend to give them
key man insurance.
And we said why don't you rope in all
those monies here.
And then we have UT private securities.
This is quite interesting.
I went out to a function I go there for
the chairman for the function and
this security guy comes and says move you
cannot park there.
And I said yeah yeah I know I understand,
but I'm the chairman for the function.
And he said okay then you can pack there.
>> [LAUGH].
>> So I packed.
Then I had worked in my office after that
function.
And the security guys on the premise of
UT were doing the same thing the same
thing to some of our clients.
And I said if we want to provide the best
services customer service to
our clients and we don't take care of
them.
I'll sign out those their stories not
complete.
So I called a friend of mine I said
general can you come over he said yes I
said I want you to form a [INAUDIBLE]
company for us.
He said, why?
I said we want our own [UNKNOWN] company
so
that the customer service starts from the
gate, not from the door.
And it's very interesting, a company that
we have there.
And we tried to do what we have in Ghana.
We went to Nigeria with a known bank
financial services that we started.
And, started growing the business, again
in South Africa.
We're also in South Africa trying to do
the same.
So currently as we speak we have UT Bank,
which has a staff of about 850 and assets
of about $500 million.
Logistics staff of about 40, assets about
$4 million, properties.
And the rest.
The total, value in terms of assets is
probably in the region of about 600 $600
million.
For what we started 17 years ago, with
assets of about $20,000.
And that is a story of UT.
Now, I need to put this slide on because,
to be able to achieve anything,
you must have strong values.
And when you start, the values are really
emanating from the leader.
And the values that we have.
Integrity, because without integrity
you'll be lying to your staff,
you'll be lying to your mates, you'll be
lying to your customers.
It is, you need to be honest to people,
and that counts for
the love for the people.
Professionalism, if you don't know what
you're about, of course you,
you collapse the whole business.
Stepping up to the plate.
What we mean is that.
Promise, if you have to promise, be
careful what you promise them.
Always said we'll do it in 48 hours.
We've done our homework, and we give them
exactly that.
So you promise carefully and make sure you
deliver.
Why not is the innovative part of it.
Challenge yourselves.
Alone in 48 hours.
Why can't it be done?
Because the banks are doing for
in two months, you want to also be doing
in two months.
You must be innovative and say, that
cannot be right.
It's not helping the people.
Ubuntu is actually a South African word,
it's a Zulu word and normally it's
[FOREIGN].
It's just part of the language, and it
means that we are family.
The whole universe, all human beings are
family.
I am who I am because of who you are,
and that's, that is connectivity amongst
all of us.
And, finally, it's about respect,
respecting everybody.
And if you come to UT you can find a
messenger
giving me a hug or me giving messenger a
hug.
Everyone's role is important.
Everyone has the right to be in this
world.
Nobody has a better right in this world.
And respect each other and give each other
a bit of space.
The bible says, love thy neighbor thyself.
Which is a bit maybe more demanding, but
at least the respect I live by that so.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Finally the final slide it just say
that fast forward
this is where we started.
And grew to cover this base.
And this is where UT in terms of
infrastructure,
this is the head office of UT holders, and
that is the head office of UT bank.
So in short, it can be done, but it has to
be done with the right values.
And with a love for people and love for
services on this note I
think I will say thank you very much and I
invite questions.
[APPLAUSE].
[BLANK_AUDIO]
>> Thank you so much Captain Amoabeng.
[LAUGH] in Ghana I met him.
He's one of the,
he's one of actually the funniest and most
powerful personalities in Ghana.
>> Oh, [UNKNOWN] that.
>> More than.
And thank you so
much for sharing your story, cuz a lot of
times I guess and I worked in the media.
A lot of what we hear coming out from
Africa is always a sad story.
And its like super empowering to hear some
of these huge success stories.
We'd like to open the floor out for
questions.
I'll go ahead and start with mine.
So you started with a company.
With a company of three people and you've
grown it to over 800 people.
>> 2,000.
>> 2,000 people.
Sorry.
And one of the things you kept,
emphasizing is people, passion,
and p, working with people who have a love
for people.
And I'm curious to understand better how
you were able to foster that in your team.
Especially as your team continued to grow.
Or.
>> Oh yeah.
Don't need this.
>> [LAUGH]
>> Well Emma, thank you very much.
The thing is, I think it all starts with
the leadership.
There are no two ways about it.
When we started with three people, with
me, I made sure that I showed.
Respect to them, I showed loyalty, I
showed transparency.
They knew what we're going I, I, mentored
them, I coached them.
We had training for them as we grew.
And I remember all the way back about 100
plus people,
I had this session which we called PK101.
And I'm PK.
And I actually sit down with every staff
member two times in a year and
ask them how they're feeling, family
issues, whatever issues.
And offer advice and things that I try to
solve them, for them.
So I was there for them.
And I set the pace because after today.
With offices international everything if
you come to my office I
still wear a name tag because every staff
must wear a name tag.
So I said leader I have to be disciplined
enough to make sure that you set the pace,
even weather the [UNKNOWN] know what you
stand for.
And you also have to put structures
processes and policies in place.
You must not go against those policies,
and anybody who goes
against those policies you apply what the
policy says to them, and it's very simple.
>> Hi, my name is Lois I work with the IFC
in Ghana.
>> IFC?
>> Prior to joining the GSB, yes.
I have one question and
it regards, you spoke about the challenges
you faced doing business in Ghana.
And when we look at the slide, you're
going outside Ghana,
you're going to South Africa, you're going
to other African countries.
So I, I would really like to know the
challenges you
are facing working across Africa with
different regulations,
different economies, really different
languages.
How are you facing those challenges?
>> Okay that is good in going to other
countries we are not going as
UT Bank because to put a bank in Nigeria,
you need a capital of $250 million and
we don't have it.
So what we've done is we've going to these
countries as a non-bank,
just as we started in Ghana.
And then, grew the non-bank and hopefully
can become a bank someday.
Now yes, we have differential changes for
example, in Accra.
A staff walk into a shop and pick money in
a bag, and bring it to the office and
it's counted and the credit's account is
credited.
In South Africa, in the ATMs they bomb
them.
The ATMs they, they actually put dynamite
to it and
blow it up and, and take the money out.
So obviously you can't walk into a shop
and pick money into the office, so
we have to be smart and find ways and
means of disbursing the monies, through a
card system that we established.
And for the clients to put their monies
back onto the card, so
we can credit the account.
In Nigeria, when we went to Nigeria they
said, oh, you guys do loans in 48 hours?
I said, yes.
Said, you can do it in Nigeria?
I said no.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Make it 72 hours and they said, why?
I said, traffic will take 24 hours.
>> [LAUGH].
>> So yeah, we have to actually, we have
the processes, not the UT process,
we have a software that actually backs it
with approvals and everything.
But as we go into any country, you have to
actually take into account the cultural
nuances and also tweak it here and there
for, for you to succeed and we learn.
So obvious, what it means is that we get
better as we go from country to country,
because we now have a car system for exam
from South Africa, and
we're also know traffic experience from
Nigeria.
So if we have go into Kenya, we study it,
if it's Nigeria type, we say 72 hours.
If it's Ghana type, 48 hours.
So, yes, we have to learn.
Thank you.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Hi, my name's Kevin Schuster, I'm part of
Voda Mobile,
a company based in Kumasi, and I was
previously a fellow at
the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School Of
Technology in East Legon.
Thank you for the role you're playing in,
in inspiring young [CROSSTALK].
>> Did they have UT, when you were in
Ghana?
>> Oh yeah.
[LAUGH] You're one of the big role models
of the entrepreneurs, so thank you for
the role you're playing, in inspiring the
next generation.
My question is could you speak a bit about
your mobile strategy at UT bank,
and kind of-
>> The more on strategy.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
What we one of the things is, banks thrive
on deposit taking.
And at a new bank we have to find ways and
means of mobilizing deposits.
And the banks are good at it they organize
raffles and
things like that if you deposit so much,
you can probably win so much.
Some of which we're doing at the moment,
but
we had to find special ways of mobilizing
deposits faster.
And of course we're looking at mobile
money mobile mobile phone money or
mobile phone and things like that.
One thing that we actually did which
changed the game a little bit, and
I'm sure that's what you're referring to,
we ordered from the U.S. a bank on wheels.
Virtually it's a van which is on wheels,
and it's got tellers in the van and
it's got ATMs on the van.
So the v, the,
the, the, the van can drive to a community
and provide full banking services.
And it's collected so it's real time
banking, and once you deposit money
with a van, you can actually go to any UT
bank and have access to your money.
We started with two trucks,
we had intentions of putting an additional
10 trucks and then grow the business.
We had initial problems I think maybe you
know our world that,
when you drove to a community, and
this was very good because one van could
save about five communities.
It goes Monday market day then it moves to
Tuesday market day and
things like, so we thought it was perfect.
Now, when we drove to the villages and
they were able to deposit some money even
in time, we pack everything back and they
are driving away, and he said you can't go
away you can't take our money away.
Because they, they are, they use the same
banks and brick and
mortar and for a bank to move with their
money.
[LAUGH]
>> So, we had to actually go to the place
again and again, and
educate people, and things like that with
the [UNKNOWN] because, and tell that, no,
we're here, our money will be fine
anywhere you see that UT sign.
It's [UNKNOWN] you know?
But-
>> [LAUGH]
>> But it's still a good thing,
because because of that, we had a fire in
the head office one morning.
And we had to close the head office.
All we did was to move one of the vans to
the head office area, and
it covered up for it.
So the mobile van issue is quite good.
And once it stabilizes, we will [UNKNOWN]
a bit more trial.
But again, the other banks are sitting
there, watching.
And they, they, they, they are not
innovative enough and
we'll always try new things and tried to
beat the competition.
Questions?
>> One last question.
>> Why?
Is it, time is up?
[LAUGH]
I was just warming up!
>> Thank you so much for this presentation
I thought it was brilliant when you
described the formal sector.
Business in the informal sector is an
extension of the individual.
What percentage of your clients did you
think needed financial education and
how much time did you have to spend to
educate your clients?
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much for that question
[BLANK_AUDIO]
You know, any time I'm talking to a
client, I'm interviewing a client and
try to judge whether I could do a loan or
not, for me, what my hint was the
character of the client.
And, and the way to do it is, I get very
informal, you walk in, I say,
oh, maybe you resemble my brother who's
this and that, and
we start some informal conversation, and
I'm trying to judge your character.
And I ask you, are you married, where do
you live.
Who are your parents?
Are you very free with your dad?
And things like that, I'm trying to judge
your character.
And I didn't learn it from any particular
source,
I just developed a flair for asking these
questions and
trying to put a guy in some kind of judge,
make a judgement about the guy.
Now if you have someone who is upright,
and
wants to do the right thing with right
character,
then you can actually reason with them,
and teach them, and things like that.
Some of them are crooks, and they come,
and they, it's like Tom and Jerry.
They're trying to see what you want, and
try to find the story find the story
around it.
But to come to your point, we realized
that, as I said, some can't even
speak good English, so we have to do a lot
of literacy campaigns for them directly.
Times when we visit, and we have to let
them know how to keep their books, and
how to do better business because it helps
them, and it helps us going forward.
And we have to organize a literacy
account,
in the markets, we tell the market chiefs
that we come in this day.
They close a bit early, or a have a break
and meet our team.
And we tell them the right things to grow
their businesses.
And how to understand money.
How to deposit monies or, or take loans
and not let the holders the money to long.
I will have a the whole, whole series of
things education that and also for
some of them we give them a formal, a
formal education.
So it is an important part because we need
to develop them and
eventually and hopefully, bring them to
the formal sector.
>> Thank you very much Mr. Irabien.
Actually I'll ask you if you have any
final words of wisdom,
a lot of us are students, workers, very
interested in working in Africa.
Just things that we need to be keeping top
of mind,
and interesting opportunities you, think
might be good to wrap it up.
>> Okay.
Thank you very much I think one of
the challenges that I find in Africa, and
every, every concerned African is worried
about is, keeping to time.
>> [LAUGH].
>> I like the way you laugh, but it's not
something you should laugh about.
>> [LAUGH].
>> You see, as humans, and being alive,
all we have, all we have is time.
In other words, your life is just the time
you have, you know, on Earth.
If you see someone that's lived 70 years,
it means he had 70 years of time, 70 years
of seconds, minutes.
So I find that to respect any human being,
you respect their time.
If you disrespect their time,
you disrespect their whole human being, it
is that serious.
Now, the biggest crime in the law books is
murder.
Murder is one you shorten somebody's life,
the time they have on this earth that is
murder.
So if it wastes somebody's one hour,
you've committed patial murder.
>> [LAUGH].
>> It's a serious this is how serious it
is.
So in dealing with people or respecting
people, that this,
if you get it right, that is ultimate
customer service.
When somebody walks to you and is looking
for
a service, use as little of their time as
possible and give their life back to them,
or their time back to them, for them to
decide what they want to do with it.
Now, the time that you take to serve them,
the additional bet is make sure it's
quality time and they find it memorable.
Because there are two aspects to time, the
shared quantity of it and
the quality of it.
Quantity, you don't determine it.
Quality, you can do something about it.
So customer service and to win clients and
all that, make sure that you deal with
them in the shortest possible time.
If you have to extent it, ask their
permission and show concern and
don't waste their time, because you're
wasting their life.
And make sure that the time you spend with
them is quality time.
They say, I went to you to oh, the guy was
so oh,
and I have to go again, and that is what
life is about.
In Africa, we got it all wrong, the moment
you are successful you are a big man,
it means you can [UNKNOWN] everybody's
time.
And I think, really, really, really,
if we would dress our wars in Africa with
respect for
time, then other things would fall into
place and it is not a joke, so keep that.
And if you want to think about innovation,
don't think anything, think time.
Is the new product or service going to
save time?
Or is, is it going to give quality time?
It must qualify into one of these things.
It's either serving time, or providing
quality time, nothing else matters.
Thank you very much.
>> [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC]
[BLANK_AUDIO]
