When it comes to proficient, professional and hardworking managers of commercial banks in Sierra Leone, there is one man who is displaying sterling leadership skills and is seen as a role model for others to emulate. This man is Usman Isiaka, Managing Director United Bank for Africa, Sierra Leone.
Since his appointment as Managing Director to lead one of the leading financial service institutions in Sierra Leone, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr. Usman Isiaka has served the bank for about 2 years now with sterling performance record.
Usman Isiaka is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and a consummate banker with over two decades banking experience at senior management level cutting across Internal Control, Audit, Compliance, Risk Management, Operations, Marketing and Business Development functions.
He joined UBA Group in the year 2000 and has since served in various roles starting with Internal Control and Audit functions as Group Head, Internal Control; Director, Audit & Control UBA Africa and Deputy Group Chief Inspector at different points in time – a responsibility that provided him field work experience across 21 out of the 23 presence countries of UBA Group before he moved into sales and marketing function in January 2014.
Since the switch, Usman has served as the Deputy Managing Director of UBA Ghana between January 2014 and May 2016; Regional Bank Head in Lagos (Nigeria) overseeing marketing and business development functions in a total of 56 branches between June 2016 and February 2018 and thereafter as MD of UBA Tanzania from March 2018 before his posting to UBA Sierra Leone as Country CEO.
Usman Isiaka is coming with a wealth of experiences to continue to position UBA as a leading and dominant financial institution in Sierra Leone in line with the Group’s aspiration. Within his short stay of less than 2 years, he has led UBA Sierra Leone to industry leadership position emerging as the most profitable bank in the country in 2021 Financial Year.
UBA Sierra Leone is a member of UBA Group, a pan African financial institution with presence in 20 Africa countries and 3 global financial service centres; namely New York, London and Paris providing services to over 18 million customers across over 1000 branches and touch points.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) Sierra Leone Limited is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Sierra Leone. The bank started its operations in 2008 as a legally registered financial service provider in Sierra Leone as a subsidiary business of UBA Group PLC in Nigeria.
Currently the Bank has ten (10) branches with four Cash Centres and ATM Points across different locations in Sierra Leone.
The UBA Sierra Leone Board of Directors currently consists of seven (7) Members of which five (5) are Sierra Leoneans including the Chairman, Claudius Bart- Williams. The multitude of local directors is part of the UBA Group’s strategic focus on domesticating the governance structure, products and services of the bank to meet the local requirements of the host economy in all its 20 presence countries in Africa.
The Bank continues to set the pace in the financial arena, expanding its products and services, branch network and establishing long-lasting business relationships that benefits all stakeholders within itsbusiness environment.
“As a true Pan African Bank, we understand the role we must play as a financial institution for the growth of Africa’s economy across all our presence countries in the continent, hence the need to strengthen and domesticate our governance structure to reflect strong local content and cultural diversity with a view to ensuring that our products and services are tailored towards the requirements of the market” said Usman Isiaka MD UBA Sierra Leone.
From the previous year, UBA rolled out 5 Retail Liability products, UBA Kiddies, UBA NEXTGen, UBA Extra, UBA Sharp-Sharp and UBA Next Level dedicated to specific market segments to ensure that the bank meets the varying banking service needs of the members of the public.
As a responsible corporate institution that operates with the objective of doing well financially and doing good to the society where the bank operates, UBA Sierra Leone also continues to partner and support the people and Government of Sierra Leone through various socio-economic empowerment initiatives.
Specifically, on the 26th of March 2020 through the UBA Foundation, UBA was the first corporate organisation in the country to provide significant support to the Government on the COVID-19 interventions with a donation of the sum of Le1.4 billion. UBA Sierra Leone under the auspices of UBA Foundation in October 2020 further launched the UBA Foundation National Essay Competition, in partnership with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, where 3 pupils from the Sierra Leone Grammar School and the Annie Walsh Memorial Secondary School emerged National Winners, whisking scholarship grants worth 50million Leones, 30million Leones and 20million Leones respectively while 9 other winners cutting across the provinces where given brand new Laptops.
The Bank through its Customer First Philosophy is committed to providing seamless and delightful banking experience to our customers through our digital products and services. The bank recently commenced Saturday Banking across all its branches in the country in demonstration of its commitment to going the extra miles to delight its customers.
UBA Group wide for more than seven decades has been providing superior financial services to small businesses, corporations, governments, institutions and individuals globally. We are present in the United Kingdom, the U.S.A. and France.
UBA has a large footprint across the globe operating in 20 African countries: Republique du Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Congo Brazzaville, Congo DRC, Cote d’lvoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Tchad, Uganda and Zambia.
Today, UBA is one of the largest financial services groups on the African continent. The bank provides corporate, commercial, SME, consumer and personal (retail) banking services to more than 18 million customers, served through diverse channels: over 1,000 business offices and customer touch points (2,539 ATMs, 24,168 PoS, robust online banking and mobile banking, social media and so on.
