Q What is the Pearl Business Current Account?
A Pearl Business Current account is a current account to manage the day-to-day banking needs of the customers; it is a single product with three variants or plans which allows customers to enjoy automated COT concessions in exchange for maintaining a stipulated minimum balance
Q What are these variants or plans, you are talking about?
A The Pearl Business account comes in 3 plans namely A,B and C;
• Customers who choose plan A only pay N3/Mille COT on their debit transactions as long as they maintain the daily minimum balance of N100,000.00 in their account.
• Customers on Plan B, pay N2/mille COT in exchange for minimum daily balance of N250,000.00
• Customers on Plan C pay Zero COT as long as they maintain a minimum daily balance of N500,000.00
Q How is this product different from the existing Pearl accounts?
A • This product is targeted solely at business customers and not individuals
• COT is payable on this account if customers maintain less than stipulated daily minimum balance
• We do not pay interest on the account
Q How does this product compare to similar products by competitors?
A Most competitor Banks offer this type of products to individual customers and not businesses hence monthly transaction limits are set; violation of which results in payment of steep COT charges.
Q Can a customer migrate from Plan A to B or C?
A Yes. To do so, the customer must make a written request to the branch manager and maintain the minimum balance for the plan that he/she wants to migrate to.
Q What types of customers can acquire this product?
A The PBCA is available to the following categories of customers;
• Retail businesses with yearly turnover of at least N2.5million
• Non-trading organisations such as Schools, Clubs and associations as well as
• Non-profit organisations such as Churches, NGOs, and other charitable institutions
Q Will the Pearl Business account offer interest on credit balances?
A No; being a transactional account meant for everyday banking purposes, the PBCA will not earn the ‘rewards’ of accounts that are used as a store of value, such as savings accounts. Any of our customers who are desirous of earning interests on their balances may do so through our various savings and investments products
Q Can customers apply for an overdraft facility on the Pearl Business Current account?
A Yes
Q Will they be charged COT while there is an overdraft on the account?
A Yes. The account will be subject to N5/Mille COT charge while there is an overdraft facility on the account
Q What about customers who do not want or do not have the capacity to maintain minimum daily balances?
A Simple. Such customers will be advised to operate a classic current account which requires no minimum balance. However, there is no COT concession automatically attached to this type of account and as such the account is subject to COT charge of N5/Mille.
Q What other value adding benefits do you provide with this account?
A 1. We have the Business debit card;
- Linked to a business current account, it is presently available to sole signatories of sole proprietorships but;
- this service will soon be rolled out to include sole signatories of limited liability companies,
- Joint Account holders and eventually, dual signatories to business accounts.
We want to provide business customers with the same 24/7 access to their accounts which are currently being enjoyed by individual customers.
2. We also have the Small Business Insurance Package which is a ‘bundle’ of insurance policies useful for every small business.
- The advantage to the package is that rather than purchase individual policies at high premiums, the customers get multiple policy covers for one discounted premium.
Q Anything else we should know about?
A Most important to note is that maximum allowable debit turnover in a month on this account is N10million. Any debit in excess of N10million will be subject to N3/Mille COT irrespective of minimum balance maintained.
