With over 20 years of experience in commercial and mortgage banking, Olabanjo Obaleye, managing director and chief executive officer of Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank Plc, one of Nigeria’s leading national Primary Mortgage Institutions, is a seasoned banker, chartered accountant, mortgage and real estate development expert and corporate strategist.
Obaleye joined Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank Plc (formerly known as Infinity Trust Savings and Loans Limited) 15 years ago as acting general manager. At the time he joined the bank, it was at the brink of collapse having received a notice from the Central Bank of Nigeria to wind down operations within 30 days due to its high negative balance sheet.
Undeterred by the difficult situation he met on ground, Obaleye immediately took the bull by the horns by developing and implementing several far- reaching “gamechanging strat e g i e s” which helped to steer the collapsing bank back to profitability within a short period. Sequel to this uncommon feat, he was made substantive MD/ CEO of the bank in 2006.
Obaleye began his banking career in Afribank Nigeria Plc ( now Skye Bank), in 1991, and later moved to the defunct Midas Bank where he worked in the operations department, rising to the position of operation manager before he left in 2003.
Obaleye’s eye for detail and quest for efficient service delivery, combined with good leadership quality ensured a fraudfree and near-zero errorfree operations for the three years and six months he worked in Midas Bank. He also worked as an operations personnel at Societe Bancaire Nigeria Limited, from where he resigned in 2004 to join Infinity Trust.
Since taking over as the MD/ CEO of Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank, the bank has recorded an unprecedented turnaround resulting in the bank being listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in 2013, becoming a National Mortgage Bank in 2014. Currently, Infinity Mortgage Bank has equity shareholding in the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC).
The bank posted what analysts have described as an impressive halfyear performance at the end of June 2019. The lender’s profit advanced to its highest level in seven years since 2013, driven by a surge in interest income.
Figures from its halfyear earnings scorecard, showed a profit after tax increased to N211 million between January and June 2019, indicating a 50 percent increase over N141 million realized within the same period of the previous year.
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Analysis of the company’s bottom-line figures between 2013 and 2019, revealed that profit surged 219 percent from N66 million to N211 million, within the seven years, with compound profit growth rate settling at 18 percent.
Fees & commission income realized by the bank nearly doubled its N27 million figure for 2018, settling at N53 million in half-year 2019, buoyed by a spike in credit- related fees & commission.
Credit- related fees & commission, which accounted for 68 percent in total fees & commission income, jumped 125 percent from N15 million to N36 million. With the commission on turnover, facilities management fees & other commission grew 67 percent, 71 percent, and 46 percent respectively.
Obaleye’s uncompromising knack for excellence and his result- oriented management and leadership style have led to the significant increase in the bank’s shareholders’ funds from less than N50 million in 2003, to over N5.84billion in halfyear 2019. Also, the bank has maintained an unbroken record in terms of consistency in dividend payments to shareholders for twelve years running.
Under the leadership of Obaleye, Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank has been able to withstand the industry’s challenging operating environments and even recording relatively giant strides.
Since 2016 when the National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS) started collating data for the Nigerian property sector, the real estate has continually been in contraction mode. After exiting recession in Q1 2019, the first growth from its negative mode, the real estate sector in the second quarter of this year turned back to contraction to post -3.84 percent growth in the second quarter of 2019.
According to the Association of Housing Corporation of Nigeria (AHCN), an umbrella organization for all federal and state housing agencies, more than 90 percent of new homes that are built in the country utilise funds from personal savings.
The low purchasing power of Nigerians whose incomes were eroded by the country’s five-quarter recession is a major factor responsible for challenges in the real estate sector. Africa’s most populous nation was in 2018 crowned the poverty capital of the world by the World Poverty Clock.
In a country where over 80 million people live on less than $2 in a day, acquiring a property is hardly a priority, even though shelter is one of the basic needs of man.
With a deficit of more than 17 million housing units, Nigeria has a mortgage industry that is less attractive to many of the country’s population owing to the high cost of servicing the loans.
With single-digit interest rates in some other countries, the mortgage industry contributes a significant amount to economic growth and development. This is however not the case in Nigeria as the roaring inflation rate and the attendant high mortgage rate has not only dampened housing demand but has eroded developers’ investment appetite.
Africa’s largest economy has one of the world’s lowest mortgages to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rate at 0.6 percent. This lags Ghana’s 2 percent, South Africa’s 30 percent and crawls after the U.S and UK rates of 60 percent and 70 percent respectively.
Under the leadership of Obaleye, Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank has made considerable efforts on policy advocacy, intending to ensure that the Nigerian mortgage industry becomes competitive with its peers.
The government seems to have been listening as the regulators are planning on new policies that address the issues that brought about the housing gap.
Obaleye’s passion for excellence and an untiring quest for unsurpassed value-added service delivery has won accolades for him and his bank both locally and internationally.
Specifically, in 2015, he was listed among top Nigerian Chief Executives in the Financial Services and Insurance Industry in the international compendium which chronicles the most influential leaders and players in the country’s financial sector.
Also, the Global Credit Rating ( GCR), Africa’s number one credit rating agency, affirmed Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank Plc’s BB+ credit rating with a positive outlook in the long term and A3 with a positive outlook in the short term.
This was in recognition of the bank’s improved competitive capacity, enhanced brand perception resulting from its transformation from a private limited liability company to a public company and the subsequent upgrade of its license to a National Primary Mortgage Bank.
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Under Obaleye’s leadership, Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank has moved from a rented office to its own ultra- modern four storey Corporate Headquarters located in Abuja’s busiest banking District in Garki. Currently, the bank has two branches in Abuja, and a branch in Lagos and Nassarawa states respectively.
Obaleye holds a B. Sc degree in Management and Accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile – Ife, and Masters in Business Administration ( Financial Management) from the University of Abuja. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria ( ICAN), Nigeria Institute of Management ( NIM), Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria ( CITN), and Institute of Credit Administration.
He recently bagged a Doctorate in Business Administration ( DBA) with a specialization in Mortgage Finance from the prestigious Walden University, USA.
An alumnus of Wharton Business School, Philadelphia, USA, Obaleye has attended many high profile seminars, symposia, training workshops, conferences, and courses locally and internationally. He has also delivered thought-provoking papers in diverse fields of human endeavour, spanning banking and finance, mortgage and real estate, leadership, human capital development, corporate strategy and business process re- engineering. Widely travelled, Banjo (as he is fondly called), is an ardent lover and player of golf.
