Zenith Bank Nigeria has emerged The Banker Magazine 2020 bank of the year in Nigeria at the awards ceremony held virtually on December 2, 2020.
Ecobank emerged as the bank of the year in Africa.
Six subsidiaries of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc have been named ‘Bank of the Year 2020’ by the Banker Magazine, leading global finance news publication published by Financial Times of London.
For the second year running, UBA’s multiple initiatives which include its investment in digital technology, adherence to world-class customer services offerings and financing critical projects have been recognised by the organisers of the world’s leading award in finance, as UBA Benin, UBA Cote D’Ivoire, UBA Chad, UBA Liberia, UBA Sierra Leone and UBA Zambia emerged best bank in their respective countries.
The exceptional win for UBA makes it the second time ever in the history of the banker awards, that any banking group will be clinching as many as six wins in the same year. The bank made history with the same number of awards in the 2019 edition of the Banker’s awards.
According to a statement by the Banker Magazine on Zenith Bank:
“Since it started business in 1990, Zenith Bank has established a reputation as a successful corporate bank. Now it is leveraging that success to make significant headway into the retail market.
The bank’s ‘Retail Takeover’ strategy involves aggressive on-boarding of retail customers, including the employees of its corporate customers, and roll-out of retail banking services, all with the help of its large branch network.
It has also started to recruit agents in communities where it does not have a branch, and where residents can’t afford transport to visit one. Since the agent banking programme was launched in 2019, Zenith has appointed more than 10,000 agents, with a target of 30,000 by the end of this year. The agents contribute to 10% of all new account openings every week.
The bank remains committed to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and retail businesses, and is increasing its capacity to give them financing. The Zenith SME Facility has enabled many SMEs to get loans at single-digit interest rates.
Zenith Bank has relaunched its EazyBanking solution, which comprises a USSD and a mobile banking product. It allows customers to open low-cost accounts and wallets using their phone numbers and has helped to reduce traffic inside Zenith’s banking halls. Features of the Zenith Mobile Banking app include scheduled savings, quick transfers, airtime and bills payment, and dispense error resolutions.
In spite a challenging environment in 2019, the bank was able to grow its Tier 1 capital by 15.5%, assets by 6.6% and net profits by nearly 8%.”
In the words of Ebenezer Onyeagwu, Zenith Bank’s CEO:
“The ever-evolving trend of digitalisation and the disruption in the financial services space has continued to shape our strategy. We are steadily building dynamic competences and capabilities in the application of digital technology to revamp our service offering and anchor our retail banking drive.”
