Society Generale Bank which regained its operating license about three years ago will today open its doors for business. The bank will operate under a new name Heritage Bank. The shareholding structure of the new bank showed that 80 per cent of the new bank is owned by a core investor, 9 per cent by Saraki family (owners of SGBN) and the remaining g 11 per cent to depositors of the bank.

The new bank emerged from former Societal Generale Bank of Nigeria (SGBN) having met the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)'s requirement to operate as a regional bank. It decided to begin operation today at the end of the revalidation of account exercise of its old customers which came to a close last week.

Speaking to Vanguard on Friday at the Heritage Bank Night, Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Ifie Sekibo, of the N21 billion deposit base it inherited from SGBN, customers have withdrawn close to 60 per cent amounting to N12.6 billion. But only 15 per cent of such customers have responded to the bank's verification exercise. Continuing, Sekibo said three branches will be opened at the monent, two in Lagos and one at Ibadan.

Speaking at the event , Chairman, Heritage Bank, Mr. Akinsola Akinfemiwa, said, "We are going to be focusing majorly on Small and medium businesses to ensure that we boost their operation. We are not there to compete with the so called big banks; our services are going to be quite different from what other banks do. We will work closely with the small and medium businesses to nurture them to greater height. We will be enlightening them on her to keep proper books of accounting, how to manage their businesses and make them grow.

Continuing, he said, "our services is going to be technology driven. We may not have many branches, but we are going to deploy technology to reach our customers. It should be noted that SGBN pioneered Automated Teller Machine (ATM) which many thought will never work. But today it is working and making withdrawal easier for people. We are going to do same as we resume operation, our employees have been trained, we attach importance to technology, excellence, professionalism, innovation, dynamism, tenacity and solutions."

It would be recalled that SGBN is one of the two banks whose licenses were recently restored by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) following court orders nullifying the revocation of their licenses. The second bank, Savana Bank, is also preparing to return to the banking industry any time from now. SGBN which has now resurfaced in the Nigerian banking scene as Heritage Bank has commenced full banking operations. It began accounts verification of customers of defunct SGBN on January 28, 2013 to give customers opportunity to either withdraw their money or reactivate their accounts with the new bank.