The Bond Bank Brand (Now a member of the Skye Bank Group)

When John Darlington, a bank executive in Nigeria had an opportunity to create a new financial institution, he turned to Alder to help actualise the idea. For starters, he was extremely passionate about creating a new standard of excellence in the banking industry - a banking sector where ‘international standards' were norm and one in which relationships and transactions were characterized by integrity.

There were 95 existing banks in the country at the time, and so competition was tough. Some of the banks were over 100 years old!

Our approach was to create a distinct identity for the bank and then strategically position it within the marketplace as a unique and novel institution.

To give form to the idea of Bond Bank, Alder Consulting organised a series of strategy sessions with relevant stakeholders (the Board & Management). At these sessions, the brand essence, personality, values, mission and vision of the bank were defined.

To ensure that the idea was firmly rooted, SWOT and Market Gap Analyses of the bank were conducted to measure the bank's chances of success in the marketplace. FAD Analysis was also carried out to identify activities which could negatively impair the bank over time. Customer profiling was done to ensure that the marketing budget was cost efficient.

To translate the idea across board, a unique logo was designed as well as the bank's visual identity - letterheads, account opening packages, chequebooks and so on - all flowing from the personality of the organisation. Adverts were created to communicate the essence of the organisation and a self replicating social responsibility initiative was conceptualised.

Using research tools, a monitoring and review system was put in place to chart the progression of the bank's brand over time and Alder was retained as Consultants and Advisors to the bank on an ongoing basis.

The result? The brand became the driving force of the new institution. It broke even in the first year of operations raking in a profit of over $2.5m dollars. That was a record performance for a new bank in Nigerian banking history.


About Bond Bank
Bond Bank was incorporated on August 20, 2002. The Bank obtained its banking license on October 31, 2002 and opened for business the very next day. It is now a member of the Skye Bank Group.