Ever committed to the well-being of Nigerians, and as an extension of its avowed desire to be the go-to bank for customers’ lifestyle needs, Fidelity Bank Plc continues to set the pace in the Nigerian financial services industry with excellent banking products and services. The bank has also received recognition for its numerous praiseworthy initiatives tailored to support Nigerians in their different pursuits.
Under the adept guidance of its CEO and Managing Director, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, the leading Nigerian bank continues to create a world of limitless opportunities, making financial services easy and accessible in various sectors such as SME support, digital banking, online banking, corporate banking and transformative Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
In the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SME) sector, Fidelity Bank is topping the charts as one of the SME-friendly Nigerian banks. This ties to their recognition of the undeniable impact that SMEs have on the Nigerian economy. According to a recent report by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, SMEs in Nigeria have contributed about 48% of the national GDP in the last five years. With 17.4 million, they account for 84% of employment and nearly 90% of the manufacturing sector regarding the number of enterprises. To support this growth and a more robust economy, Fidelity Bank has positioned itself as a leading supporter of small businesses with a suite of tailored offerings, equipping Nigerian SMEs with the much-needed capacity for sustained business growth and entrepreneurial success. This is evident in their low-interest credit facilities with flexible collateral requirements, the Fidelity SME Academy which offers business advisory to business owners, and the critically acclaimed Fidelity SME Radio Forum. All these initiatives and more have resulted in tremendous success for the benefiting SMEs.
Going beyond SME support, the bank has also recorded remarkable strides in digital banking. Fidelity Bank currently leads a growing number of forward-looking financial institutions that are leveraging technology to create innovative products and services. The bank underwent a significant evolution of business culture over the past years to improve operational efficiency.
The impact of this business evolution can be easily seen in the bank’s recently introduced “Pay Yourself” digital service for salary earners and SMEs. This ground-breaking digital product puts customers in charge of their finances by letting them determine when they want to get paid- anytime from midnight on their official payday to the last day of the month. The product which had been piloted successfully for eleven months by their staff is now available to customers whose salaries are domiciled with Fidelity Bank. ‘Pay Yourself’ gives customers the ability to pay themselves their salary via USSD code on their mobile phones.
The Fidelity Virtual Card is another revolutionary product the bank has introduced recently to enhance its customers’ lifestyle by enabling them to carry out transactions without their physical cards. The cards can also be linked to any account and are 100 percent secure. In addition to this, the bank partnered with PayAttitude, a Nigerian fintech company, to create seamless payments and financial transactions. With this partnership, Fidelity Bank customers now have the option of carrying out transactions with just their phone numbers.
This drive by the bank to better the lives of Nigerians can also be seen in the bank’s noteworthy investments in corporate organisations. Taking cognisance of the sector’s contribution to the Nigerian economy, the bank has over time developed tailored products and services to sustain such organisations with their working capital and structured finance needs.
These services and products enable corporate organisations to own efficient Current Accounts with complimentary management of the daily cash flows. The bank also provides specific solutions such as the Working Capital Finance, which provides working capital solutions such as Trade Finance where the bank facilitates the issuance of various types of Letters of Credit, Bills for Collection, and Import Finance Facility for international trade. The bank also offers Overdraft and finances, which guarantees easy access to funding for corporates with short-term funding needs. There are also Bonds and Guarantees, which are Contingent Liabilities to guarantee performance and/or payments on contractual obligations for Large Corporates.
All of these, amongst others, solidifies the bank’s position as a customer-centered bank, with the mission to not only make financial services easy and accessible to Nigerians everywhere but, more importantly, to provide financial services that suit the Nigerian lifestyle.
