The Effectiveness Of Pricing As A Marketing Tool In Banks– Customers Perception Approach In Nigeria.

ABSTRACT

This work investigated the effectiveness of pricing as a tool for marketing banking services in Nigeria. This has become necessary in view of the persistent altering of Nigerian banking landscape since the advent of Federal Government Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986. Structural Adjustment programme ushered in a period of bank market liberalization that lowered the industrial entering and exit requirements, introduced deregulation in the industry and offered banking model tending towards universal banking. Consequently, the number of banks in the economy rose from 41 to 118. Eighteen years after, (in 2004), the number of banks had shrunk to 89. That was followed by another period of consolidation that saw the emergence of 25 much bigger banks from the 89 in 2005. The Banks had large capital base, this enabled successful ones among them to pick bigger tickets while offering facilities to multinationals and other high net-worth firms in Nigeria. In less than five years, that is in 2009, over a third of these banks were declared seriously sick by the industrial regulator-Central Bank of Nigeria. The subsequent Audit of all the banks highlighted some of the abuse prevalent in the old system. One of the main abuses is the waste of fund by banks in an ineffective and efficient manner towards achieving corporate goals. A good example is the excessive promotion of banks pricing regimes. This research aims at determining the usefulness or otherwise of promoting banks pricing regimes. Survey method was used and data were sourced from primary (questionnaires) and secondary sources. In answering the research questions and testing the relevant hypotheses some statistical tools such as Simple and Multiple Regressions (processed with SPSS and Startgraphic softwares) were used. The findings of this work show that there are little or no relationship between some important variables – such as bank charges variations and demand for banks products, bank charges variation and profitability etcetera.