MARKETTING OF FINANCIAL SERVICES IN A DEREGULATED ECONOMY

KEHINDE OLORUNDARE.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The domain of marketing has been proven by Levitt (1988) and Kotler (1980), among others to transcend the tangible products areas. Increasingly, intangibles (including financial services) have benefited from the pervasive advantage that marketing can offer. Today, persons, ideas and in fact, doctrines are daily sold to us.

Financial services (and intangible product) is one of the important services provided by banks in the economic sub-sector in Nigeria and whose employment of marketing service is becoming more noticeable and acknowledge. The financial services is becoming more noticeable and acknowledge. The financial services sector has in recent years been among the fastest growing areas in the Nigerian economy. Progressive deregulation, starting with free banking ad decentralized foreign exchange market to the lifiting of interest rates ceiling and structural adjustment programme had dramatically altered the operating environment facing suppliers of financial services. These changes in conjunctions with decreases in personal income and wealth, contraction in other sectors of the economy, trends towards globalization and developments in information technology have created an increasingly competitive and demand driven financial sector. As a consequence of these changes, the sector has witnessed considerable innovation not only in terms of products but perhaps more importantly, in terms of processes and marketing arrangement. Initially, the pattern of deregulation probably had its greatest impact in the corporate banking sector and was fuelled by the expanding role of multinational firms. Consequently, many banks, particularly the new generation banks tended to follow their