Nigeria’s recent banking and insurance recapitalisation exercises have materially strengthened the regulatory capital base of the financial sector. The Central Bank of Nigeria confirmed that 33 of 38 banks met the revised minimum capital requirements, collectively raising N4.65 trillion, while the National Insurance Commission subsequently confirmed 48 insurance companies and two reinsurance companies as compliant with the new minimum capital requirements. But will larger capital bases automatically produce stronger institutions, more loyal customers and better returns? In this interview, Joko Okupe, founder/CEO of Soulsight Africa, a brand-led business growth consultancy, explains why the next challenge is to deploy that financial strength to build stronger brands, better businesses and sustainable growth. Modestus Anaesoronye brings the report.
Nigerian banks and insurance companies have undergone major recapitalisation exercises. What should be their most important priority now?
The immediate priority should be to use their stronger capital positions to strengthen their brands, build better businesses and achieve sustainable growth. Recapitalisation improves financial capacity and resilience, but capital alone does not guarantee market leadership, customer loyalty, operational efficiency or profitability. These institutions must now ask fundamental questions: What kind of bank or insurance company do we want to become? Where will we compete? How compelling is our current brand promise to customers? Do we need to redefine it? Why should customers choose us over competitors? What organisational capabilities must we build to deliver our value proposition consistently? The next phase should therefore focus on strategic repositioning, organisational alignment, customer experience and profitable growth. The real measure of recapitalisation success will not be only how much capital institutions have raised, but how effectively they deploy it to strengthen their brands, build better businesses and create sustainable value.
Where does Soulsight’s Brand-Led Business Growth Framework fit into this post-recapitalisation agenda for these sectors?
Brand-Led Business Growth (BLBG) Framework provides a framework for connecting an organisation’s ambition with its business strategy, brand promise, people, culture, operations and customer experience. Many institutions may emerge from recapitalisation financially stronger without necessarily becoming more differentiated or better as businesses. BLBG helps Management define the kind of institution it wants to become and align the entirety of the organisation to deliver that ambition. For example, a bank positioning to lead in SME banking must do more than advertise itself as SME-friendly. Its credit processes, relationship management, digital platforms, advisory capabilities and service culture must genuinely support SMEs. Similarly, an insurance company promising peace of mind must demonstrate that promise through clearly differentiated transparency in its policies, empathetic employees, responsive service, and dependable claims settlement, amongst others, to deliver on its promise, not some of the time, but all of the time. This strengthens their brand promise, customer confidence, retention and profit. The level of the company’s performance in these areas must be unparalleled in superiority to competition.
What specific opportunities does BLBG present for recapitalised banks?
I see four major opportunities: first is strategic differentiation. Banks must clearly define their brand promise, priority customer segments, products and services, and identify the areas in which they can build a distinctive and defensible competitive advantage.
Second is customer experience transformation. Stronger capital should be accompanied by visible improvements across the entire customer journey, including digital channels, service reliability, complaint resolution and relationship management. These improvements should strengthen trust, retention and brand loyalty.
Third is organisational alignment. Employees, processes, technology and performance systems must support the bank’s chosen market proposition and brand promise. Deliberate measures are needed to close the gap between what the brand promises and what the business delivers, ensuring that the entire organisation is equipped and accountable to deliver that promise consistently.
Fourth is brand-led profitable growth. Many banks have invested significant resources in brand-building activities that have increased awareness and visibility, but they have yet to use their brand strength consistently as an engine of business growth. Banks should connect their brands more deliberately to customer acquisition, retention and loyalty, while strengthening product differentiation and commercial performance.
There is a need to move beyond competing on size and visibility and start competing through distinctive superior value, consistently superior delivery and execution to actualise their full growth potential.
And what about insurance companies? Are their market challenges somewhat different?
Absolutely. The opportunity is particularly significant for insurance companies because the sector still has considerable scope to strengthen its brands and build brand-driven businesses. Brand strategy has not always been treated as an integral part of the business. Recapitalisation strengthens underwriting capacity, but insurers must also sharpen their brand promises and improve the customer journey in clearly differentiated ways. BLBG can help insurers redefine their propositions around accessibility, transparency, reliability and genuine customer protection. This may involve simplifying products, improving distribution, developing propositions for underserved customer segments, strengthening broker and agent relationships, digitising customer interactions and improving claims processes. Consider an insurer that promises dependable protection: that promise must be evident in policy clarity, premium collection, customer communication and, most importantly, the claims experience. The most convincing proof of an insurer’s brand promise is what happens when a policyholder needs it most. The insurance industry still has considerable ground to cover, but closing the gap between business delivery and brand promise presents a significant opportunity for trust, loyalty and sustainable growth.
Some institutions may consider rebranding after recapitalisation. Is that the right starting point?
Not necessarily. Recapitalisation may create a legitimate reason to review an institution’s positioning and identity, particularly following mergers, acquisitions or significant strategic changes. However, changing a logo, corporate colours or advertising campaign does not automatically transform the business. Our approach would be to begin with a strategic and organisational diagnosis and ask specific questions. For example, they need to ask themselves honest questions about what has changed in the institution’s ambitions, capabilities and market opportunities. What do customers currently think and experience? Where are the gaps between the brand promise and business delivery? Only after answering these questions should management determine whether the institution needs repositioning, operational transformation, customer experience improvement or a visual identity change. Rebranding should reflect a meaningful business transformation, not substitute for one.
How would Soulsight approach the transformation of a recapitalised financial institution?
We use a six-stage Brand-Led Business Growth approach.
Discover: Assess the market, customers, competition, organisational capabilities and performance gaps.
Define: Identify the institution’s strategic opportunity, desired positioning and distinctive customer proposition.
Design:Develop the brand proposition, customer experience and relevant business model improvements.
Align:Connect leadership, employees, organisational culture, operations and systems with the proposition.
Activate:Translate the strategy into customer-facing improvements, employee engagement and market activities.
Grow: Measure results, address performance gaps and continuously strengthen competitive advantage.
For a bank, this could involve building a differentiated SME banking proposition. For an insurer, it could mean redesigning the policyholder experience around accessibility and claims reliability. The methodology connects strategic ambition with implementation and measurable commercial outcomes.
Tell us about the Soulsight Africa journey and how you came about the Brand-Led Business Growth Framework.
Soulsight Africa started as WAR ROOM in 2004 and rebranded to Soulsight Nigeria in 2008, when we joined the Soulsight Global Alliance, a group of professionals in the brand marketing space with a presence in the USA, Spain, Korea, Mexico & Nigeria.
Since inception, our work has been driven by a simple but powerful belief that strong brands have the power to transform businesses and build wealth.
We have had the privilege of serving some visionary businesses to build brands that have become trusted, admired, and relevant in their space.
Over the years, it has also become increasingly clear to us that many good businesses struggle with growth, not because they’ve failed to build strong brands through compelling campaigns and great brand stories, but because the underlying business strategy, systems, structure, customer experience, leadership, and operational processes are not fully aligned with the totality of their brand, especially the promise it makes.
This insight has shaped the next chapter of our journey as we evolved from a traditional branding & communications firm into Soulsight Africa, a brand-led business growth consultancy.
This evolution reflects our broader commitment to helping organisations not only define who and what their brand stands for but also use their brand to help them build businesses capable of long-term value creation and sustained growth through internal brand alignment.
The BLBG framework intentionally and strategically aligns and integrates business strategy, operational excellence, people & culture, and customer experience with brand to form one cohesive framework to power sustainable growth.
We believe that brand strategy should not operate independently of business strategy. The brand defines the value an organisation promises, while its people, processes and systems determine its capacity to deliver that value. By connecting these elements, the BLBG framework seeks to help organisations move beyond brand visibility towards a better business and sustainable business growth.
What is your final message to the leadership of recapitalised banks and insurance companies?
Recapitalisation provides financial strength. What institutions do with that strength will determine their future competitiveness, performance and growth. The next challenge is to build businesses that are more differentiated, more customer-focused, operationally stronger and commercially sustainable, driven by the brand. Brand-led business growth can help strengthen the business behind the brands by turning the brand into an engine of business growth. That is the opportunity Brand-Led Business Growth presents in the post-recapitalisation era.
Modestus Anaesoronye is a leading Nigerian financial journalist with over two decades of experience reporting on the insurance and pension sectors across Nigeria and West Africa. He has held key editorial positions at major national media outlets, including The Comet, The Nation, and Financial Standard, and currently serves as a Senior Financial Analyst at BusinessDay Media Ltd. A widely travelled reporter, he has covered industry developments in more than 14 countries across Africa and Asia. Anaesoronye is a multiple award-winning journalist, honoured several times as Insurance Journalist of the Year and Pension Journalist of the Year by recognised industry bodies, including PensionScope and the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), among others.
