Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Intercontinental Bank, Mr. Mahmoud Lai Alabi said that the bank has put in place strategies to recover N200 billion of its loan in the next three months.

Intercontinental Bank is one of the five banks whose chief executive officers and executive directors were sacked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).  Alabi was appointed by the apex bank to direct the affairs of the and nurture it to recovery.

Speaking in an interview with Reuters, he said that there would be no peace or sleep for uncooperative debtors adding that the N100 billion bailout fund from the CBN has helped to improve the liquidity of the bank.

He said based on assessment the situation of the bank, the  the priorities of the new management is , “ To sustain the level of staff morale, which I have observed since I came back. Two, build public confidence. Three, grow our deposits. Four, chase our debts. As I’ve said, whoever owes Intercontinental Bank and has not paid us, we would give them neither peace nor sleep. We believe that with the approach we have adopted, we can reasonably collect not less than N200 billion within the next three months. In fact, we are hoping we can double that. And of course, make sure that our services are improved.”

“We have made good recoveries. As I am talking to you, we’ve recovered over N30 billion and this figure will improve in multiples in the next few weeks. It’s not a question of their response; this is a question of a task that must be achieved. So, we are employing every means possible. We have a team of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officials resident in the bank, which are assisting us. But the approach we have adopted is that if you are cooperative, we would cooperate with you and through that, we’ve been able to give incentives to these debtors to pay.

And I think the combination of coercion, flexibility, understanding and some discounts in view of the nature of the environment is encouraging many of the debtors to respond positively. But I want to say emphatically that whatever needs to be done with those of them who are proving very difficult would be done. As I said, if you owe Intercontinental Bank and you don’t want to pay, we would not allow you to sleep. That is the challenge I have collecting our debts.”

On the impact of the N100 billion bailout fund, he said, “It has improved our liquidity and stabilised our exposure to the inter-bank market: but that’s not the final solution. The final solution is a combination of our aggressive debt recovery, maintaining and growing our deposits and we are succeeding in both angles. The N100 billion has gone a long way to assuage our liquidity position.”