...Set to clinch three others
It was a night of accolades on Friday, September 23, at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, Washington DC, United States of America as Nigeria’s leading financial institution, First Bank of Nigeria Plc (FirstBank)was declared winner of the Most Innovative Bank in Africa Award by the African Banker, just as it is set to clinch three other international awards from the New-York based Global Finance. The Global Finance awards are Best Trade Finance Bank in Nigeria, Best Foreign Exchange Provider in Nigeria and Best Emerging Market Bank in Nigeria.
The African Awards ceremony, organised by the Africa Banker, organisers of the annual African Bankers Awards,held alongside the 2011 IMF/World Bank meetings at Washington DC. According to Omar Ben Yedder, Group Publisher of African Banker magazine, the award goes to the African bank that has demonstrated original and practical uses of technology to provide customer convenience, better and cheaper services, and greater access to the financial services industry in Africa. Other nominees for this category of the awards were BIM – Banco International de Mozambique, Diamond Bank of Nigeria, Equity Bank of Kenya and Kenya Post Office Savings Bank. FirstBank is the only Nigerian bank that received an award at the occasion which had in attendance over 300 guests including bankers, financial analysts, consultants and businessmen.
Receiving the award on behalf of the Bank, Folake Ani-Mumuney, Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, FirstBank said the award is a global recognition of the giant strides the Bank has achieved over the years in the areas of deployment of technology to power its operations and services and ultimately making banking services more convenient, accessible and faster, adding that all these are major feats in the Bank’s customer-oriented and innovative financial plans. “This confirms the Bank’s interest in its customers, their lifestyles and businesses”, she said.

It would be recalled that the Bank, earlier in the year, unveiled a suite of retail, consumer and electronic products which are conceived to empower corporate and individual Nigerians to enable them meet business and personal needs. Apart from these products, the Bank recently pioneered the first Bio-Metric ATM in Nigeria, apart from its 24 hour interactive Customer Service platform named FirstContact and the Cheque receiving ATM.

The African Banker Awards is organised by African Banker magazine, IC Events, and BusinessinAfrica Events. It is a landmark event taking place every year during the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings. The event brought together around 300 key industry players and top government officials from Africa and around the world to honour the achievements of companies and individuals who have contributed significantly to the reform, modernisation and expansion of the continent's banking and financial system, driving Africa's sustained economic growth in the process
Winners of the Global Finance awards will be chosen by a team of editors from Global Finance with input from industry analysts, corporate executives, banking consultants and technology experts from 24 countries around the world,FirstBank was nominated in the three categories alongside the 24 existing banks in Nigeria