In 1965, the Standard Bank of South Africa merged with the Bank of West Africa acquiring businesses including a banking operation in Nigeria, which dated back to 1894. The name was then changed to Standard Bank of West Africa. Four years after the merger, Standard Bank Nigeria was incorporated locally to take over the business in Nigeria. In 1971, 13% of the share capital was placed with Nigerian investors. The end of the civil war saw a major economic upturn and as a consequence, the military government sought to increase local control of the retail-banking sector, hence the Bank's investment in Standard Bank Nigeria (renamed First Bank of Nigeria in 1979) was reduced to 38%. Standard Chartered remained a shareholder of First Bank of Nigeria until 1996.

Standard Chartered re-entered Nigeria in 1999 and opened to customers on 15 September 1999 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank Plc, headquartered in United Kingdom. It now has fourteen branches located in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Ibadan, Kano, Aba and Ota offering a wide range of products and services in both consumer and wholesale banking. It employs over 380 employees and sees Nigeria as a growth centre.

Review of operations

• In 2005 we injected $140 million as additional capital into our business in Nigeria, the first foreign bank to do so, which clearly demonstrates our commitment towards Africa generally and Nigeria in particular.
• The Wholesale Bank business comprises Global Markets and Origination & Client Coverage. The business has a broad strategic focus which includes large local corporate businesses with support and growth for multinational corporates, development organizations, and financial institutions business, which remains at the core of Standard Chartered's global strategy.
• WB provides its clients with a wide range of customized product and industry based solutions including transaction banking solutions, offering a cost-effective collections and payments value proposition, a good example of which was our successful tender for the 5-year Shell Petroleum local currency payment mandate representing over 120,000 transactions on a volume of USD3billion.
• WB has also built a distinctive capability in corporate finance leveraging group industry and product expertise and local knowledge to deliver one-stop solutions to selected clients, and is now recognized as a leading deal maker particularly in the energy sector. Addax acquisition of Pan Ocean is a leading example of our structuring and deal making capabilities
• We have broadly deepened relationships and grown our share of wallet by similarly leveraging group expertise/product partner engagement to maximise share of mind in key oil/gas/telecoms/power sectors, privatisations and development organisation businesses, with our outstanding WB team providing the anchor for client focus and deal origination and execution.
• Also, a strong cash management team has been developed within the business; this we recognize is critical to our customers' needs in what remains essentially a cash based society.
• We have made significant progress towards establishing a strong framework for the successful implementation of a thriving Consumer Banking business in the Nigerian market.
• We have deepened relationships and grown our share of wallet by growing our CB customer base from 4,500 in 2003 to over 24,000 by end 2007.
• We successfully launched several innovative and first-to-market products, including My Dream Account, Visa Platinum card, Off-shore investment products - Schroders & Old Mutual, Visa Business card, Diva Account and Bancassurance.
• The SME business has been up-scaled and is set to tap into the enormous potential in the Nigerian SME market.
• We have broadened customer channels through deployment of SMS banking, call centre and I-banking
• The distribution of product offerings has been broadened through the engagement of more Direct Sales Agents
• We have strengthened our risk management and up-skill CB credit/asset acquiring capabilities.
• We have a very successful aggressively managed talent development programme using a whole raft of initiatives which include cross-functional moves, internal job watches, attachments in and out of Nigeria, OL interventions and we have developed a 'pay for performance' culture.
• Our Gallup's Q12 employee engagement process and strength based people development programme are some of the tools which make SCB a great place to work. In 2007, our Q12 score was 4.31
• The Technology and Operations team - the bank's service delivery arm, has successfully implemented the Group's Core Banking systems eBBS including dotOpal and branch front end system- eBranch. The deployment of modern and standardized platform is a significant milestone to growing our Nigerian franchise.
• For the last few consecutive years, we have enjoyed one of the lowest critical staff turnovers in the industry - a testament to our staff engagement culture.
• Our stamp is boldly imprinted with "giving back to the communities in which we operate." There has been continuous support in the prevention of blindness and support for the visually challenged, HIV awareness (internal & external) and healthcare. Through Seeing is Believing, we hold an Annual initiative tagged "Walk for Sight" that has been hugely successful. In 2007, the walk attracted about 600 participants and we raised $100,000, enough to restore sight to 3,600 people with cataract-induced blindness.

Points of interest

• PERFORMANCE: We are keeping our promises to shareholders and have a strong track record of performance. We had a truly challenging but remarkable 2007 and delivered stunning results.
• STRATEGY:
  . We have created a significant presence in Nigeria where we are one of the country's most respected financial institutions.
  . We have combined global capability with deep local knowledge and creativity to outperform our competitors.
  . We will continue to balance the pursuit of our growth with firm control of costs and risks.
• GOVERNANCE & COMPLIANCE
  . We continue to set governance standards in the countries we operate by migrating FSA best practices, e.g. KYC, AML, etc.
  . We actively engage with all our Governments and Regulators to share our skills and expertise and work in partnership to support sustainable development.
• GROWTH We operate in a very dynamic environment with limitless opportunities for growth. We are well positioned for this growth and continue to focus on our BHAG "triple-double" growth plans of tripling the number of our customers and doubling the number of our products per customer by 2008.
• COMMUNITY We aim to make a positive contribution to the communities that we operate in through our various initiatives that link our core business activities, expertise and resources with the key issues facing these communities.

Principal Office Address 142 Ahmadu Bello Way Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria

Tel: +234 (01) 2700025 Fax: +234 (01) 2702144