Zenith Bank has emerged as The Banker Magazine 2022 Bank of the Year in Nigeria announced by The Banker Magazine, Financial Times Group, United Kingdom, during the awards ceremony held in London on 1 December, 2022.
According to The Banker Magazine:
“Nigeria’s Bank of the Year award was among the continent’s most hotly contested this year, befitting the country’s status as Africa’s largest economy. The country’s second-largest lender, Zenith Bank, is this year’s winner, in recognition of its support for small businesses and efforts to cut energy consumption.
Zenith reported a 13% growth in Tier 1 capital and an 11% rise in assets during 2021, with profits increasing by 6%. Return on equity worsened slightly from 22.4% to 20.4%.
The bank launched its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) Grow My Business solution in late 2021 in a bid to support SME growth in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme — offered by the bank in collaboration with partners including Visa and Facebook — is designed to help with challenges such as technology adoption, capital growth and access to low-interest loans. It helps to reduce marketing costs and offers business advice via training, as well as provides much-needed accounting and collection solutions.
Since the launch of the scheme, the bank has disbursed more than N49bn ($110m) of loans to SMEs in general and N5bn to women-owned businesses through Z-Woman, a subset of the programme targeted at female-owned businesses.
On the digital front, the bank launched its Zenith Intelligent Virtual Assistant (Ziva) chatbot, with services including account opening, balance enquiry, money transfer, and airtime and bills payment.”
Commenting on the award, the Group Managing Director/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, Ebenezer Onyeagwu, said:
“Transactions across various digital channels have grown significantly over the past year, driven by growth in our acquiring and issuing businesses on the back of innovative deployment of payment technologies.
We are building more robust digital capabilities and omnichannels, as well as partnering and collaborating with fintechs to reinforce our presence in the digital ecosystem and drive our retail franchise.
Winning the Bank of the Year attests to our tenacity as an institution despite a very challenging operating environment exacerbated by persistent macroeconomic headwinds. Indeed, being recognised by The Banker – the world’s longest running international banking title, is an acknowledgement of the resilience of the Zenith brand as the leading financial institution in Nigeria and the West African sub-region.”
He lauded the Founder and Chairman, Jim Ovia, CFR, for his guidance and pioneering role in laying the foundation and building the structures for an enduring and successful institution, the Board for their outstanding leadership, the staff for their commitment and dedication as well as the Bank’s customers for their unflinching loyalty to the Zenith brand over the years.
Regarded as the industry standard for banking excellence, The Banker’s Bank of the Year award is contested by the world’s leading financial institutions, with winners chosen across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and Western Europe.
