One of Nigeria’s largest Banks by assets, Access Bank Plc has been picketed by some of its sacked staff who are accusing the bank of not paying them off.
The staff allege that over 1.000 ‘loyal’ staff of the bank were laid off without pay-off after the Bank declared a profit margin of N102.3 billion.
Access Bank has been having trouble digesting the acquisition of tier-2 lender Diamond Bank, as proposed synergy gains failed to materialise.
Access Bank had touted synergy gains as one of the merits of that merger but recently released H1 2020 results showing flat profits amid other operating expenses that surged to N120 billion, shows that dream may be evaporating.
Combined personnel and other operating expenses jumped 40 percent to N156.92 billion from N111.82 billion in the 2019 period.
Access Bank stock is up just 3.8 percent in the past year, underperforming the wider all share index which is up 30 percent.