Category Archives: UBA

Bank of the Year Awards 2021

The Banker magazine is announcing its “Bank of the Year” awards for 2021 today. The awards are grouped by different zones of winners for the Americas, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia and overall global.

For Africa, the winners for best bank in different countries were: Algeria (Citi), Angola (Banco BAI), Botswana (FNB), Cabo Verde (Banco Interatlântico), Comoros (Exim Bank), Democratic Republic of Congo (Trust Merchant Bank), Djibouti (CAC International), Egypt (Banque Misr) and Guinea Bissau (Orabank).

Kenya’s bank of the year was KCB, then Mauritius had SBM, Morocco (Bank of Africa), Mozambique (Millennium BIM), Namibia (Windhoek), South Africa (Nedbank), and Sudan (Omdurman National).

Multiple award winners include Ecobank (best in Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Togo), Equity Bank (for Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda) and Stanbic (for Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe)

Finally, the United Bank of Africa (UBA) won best bank in thirteen countries across the continent – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zambia. The UBA Group also won the overall “bank of the year 2021” for the Africa region.

TEF 2019 class unveiled

The fifth cycle of beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) entrepreneurs program was unveiled on Friday, March 22 in Abuja, Nigeria.

This year 216,000 applied to join (up from 151,000 in 2018), with 90,000 being women during the window that opened on January 1. After an extensive shortlisting process, 3,050 entrepreneurs, from 54 African countries, were selected to receive $5,000 capital for their business ventures, 12 weeks of tailored training, and the opportunity to attend the annual TEF Forum in July 2019.

Over the years, more strategic partners have come forward to assist the Tony Elumelu Foundation to expand the impact of their ten-year $100 million program that aims to empower 10,000 entrepreneurs and create 1 million jobs and in 2019, partners are providing funding support for 2,500 entrepreneurs.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is sponsoring 1,000 entrepreneurs (a commitment worth $5 million) and matching the support of the Tony Elumelu Foundation this year. Also, the United National Development Program (UNDP) is sponsoring 754 from 45 countries, while the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is sponsoring 180 entrepreneurs from conflict-hit countries. Others are Seme City (from the Federal Republic of Benin), the US Consulate in Lagos (sponsoring 20), the Anambra State Government, Indorama, and the Government of Botswana (sponsoring 20).

Present at the unveiling, that was livestreamed around the world, was Aisha Buhari, the First Lady of Nigeria, and Tony Elumelu, who founded the Program. Others were the Foundation CEO Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, her predecessor Parminder Vir, TEF partner representatives, and the media.

Also at the event, a team of evaluators from Accenture explained the selection and short-list process they had done since the application deadline of March 1 2019. They also provided a breakdown of applications by country, gender, business stage, and business industry, with the highest number of applicants for 2019 engaged in agriculture, ICT and education sectors. They also highlighted trends in the program over the years including the overall increase in the number of female applicants.

All the applicants are now part of TEF Connect, which, with over 600,000 members, is the largest social network of African entrepreneurs. On the Connect platform, they can chat with fellow business owners in different African countries, access mentors, learning materials and network and share business ideas.

Update for 2020: The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme Cycle which opened on January 1 will feature new changes that are vastly different from previous years. This year applicants will now receive instant feedback on their application and if they can proceed to the next stage to receive business training.

They will then be notified on if they can proceed to the mentorship stage and in June 2020, there will be pitching sessions to determine who the final beneficiaries of the $5,000 seed capital will be.

Large Bank Engagement Programs: Nigeria and Kenya

How do large banks engage with the public? Some have programs that go beyond the usual corporate social responsibility – and which go out to address unique national challenges or provide opportunities to large segments of the population who may also be customers of the bank

Kenya scholarships and training.

In Kenya, large banks have some education programs, offering scholarships and support to gifted primary and high school students in different counties. The largest of these has been Equity Bank, which has its “Wings to Fly” leadership program. In nine years, Wings to Fly has given over 15,000 scholarships to needy or financial challenged pupils, 8,000 of who attained the university entrance grade after secondary school.

There are also other entrepreneurship forums, training programs and business clubs.

KCB has a KCB2Jiajiri, a Kshs 50 billion program started in 2016 that aims to benefit 500,000 entrepreneurs in 5 years, thereby creating at least 2.5 million direct and indirect jobs. 

Barclays

Barclays Bank of Kenya launched Ready to Work, a free online training program to help college students and recent graduates get “job-ready” for a world of work. The bank also has a business club founded in 2003 that has supported over 9,000 companies and whose entrepreneur members have traveled to network and trade in over ten countries.

Nigerian bank do mega events:

Access Bank: In December, Access Bank had a huge year-end musical event.

The Bank also hosted a “Born In Africa Fest,” a musical event that was attended by over 25,000 guests.

Ecobank: The bank has a recurring fintech challenge to find financial technology companies with solutions and models that can scale across Africa.

GT Bank

GT Bank stages an annual fashion event called the GTBank Fashion Weekend that brings together fashion and business leaders from around the world to create the biggest fashion experience in Africa.

They also aim to showcase African art in different countries.

UBA: Unique among the banks is UBA, who in conjunction with their Chairman, and his Tony Elumelu Foundation have just launched the fifth year of a $100 million entrepreneurship challenge a philanthropic program that aims to find, train and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs. So far, over 4,470 entrepreneurs have benefited, and, through UBA in Kenya, over 350 local entrepreneurs in Kenya have received the seed capital of $5,000 for their businesses, training and mentoring, and many of them have been to Nigeria to attend an annual congress of entrepreneurs.

The number of applicants has been increasing each year. Last year there were over 150,000 applicants, and this year applications are all being done via TEFConnect, which is billed as the largest digital networking platform for African entrepreneurs.

The TEF Entrepreneurship Program is open to citizens and legal residents of all African countries, who run for-profit businesses based in Africa that are no older than three years. The deadline for applications submission is March 1, 2019.

Zenith Bank

Zenith Bank held “Style by Zenith,” a flagship Lifestyle, beauty, fashion, accessories and entertainment fair, in conjunction with Fashion One, in the last weekend of December 2018.

Nigerian Banks – Diamond and Access to merge

After weeks of speculation, Diamond and Access Banks announced a merger to create the largest bank in Nigeria.

It was reported that the Diamond Bank spurned offers to inject critical capital from US private equity firm, Carlyle that was a key shareholder in the bank and sought other deals, and the statement points to a competitive process out of which Diamond selected Access Bank.

According to an FT report, the deal values Diamond at just over $200 million and would create Nigeria’s biggest bank by both deposits and assets and that the merged entities would have 650 branches and 6,800 that would see some savings through redundancies.

Access will acquire Diamond through a combination of cash and shares with Diamond shareholders receiving Naira 3.13 per share, comprising N1.00 per share in cash and the allotment of 2 new Access Bank ordinary shares for every 7 Diamond Bank ordinary shares held.

The merger will result in the end of Diamond Bank with listings of its shares cancelled at the Nigeria Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange when the merger is completed in the first half of 2019. Access is listed in Nigeria, while Diamond was also caught up in the Nigeria vs. MTN forex case.

The Banker Magazine ranked five Nigerian banks among 1,000 top global banks with Zenith, Guaranty Trust, FirstBank, Access Bank and United Bank for Africa featuring. Another ranking of the top banks in Nigeria in 2017 listed Nigeria Zenith, Guaranty Trust, First Bank of Nigeria, Ecobank Nigeria, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa, Diamond Bank, Union Bank of Nigeria, and Fidelity Bank. The banks with a presence in Kenya are Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank), Ecobank and United Bank for Africa (UBA).

edit March 2019 Approvals: The merger decision was approved by 98% of Access Bank shareholders, while at Diamond Bank it got 100% (99.98%) approval. Also, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission have approved for the combined businesses to start business on April 1, 2019, as a Pan-African bank operating in 12 countries, 3 continents. The combined banks (Access had 11.8% market share and Diamond 4%) will have 15.9% making it largest Nigerian bank ahead of Zenith (14.6%), FBN (13.9%) and UBA (11.7%)

Digital banking: The new bank has been hailed by the deal backers as creating Africa biggest retail bank by customer base (29 million) with 677 branches, and 3,100 ATM’s. On the digital side, Access had 3 million customers compared to Diamond’s 10 million online banking customers and Access will incorporate elements of Diamond’s banking services such as XclusivePlus, DiamondXtra and Pay Day loans. 

No new capital: Post-deal ownership of the bank will comprise 81% Access shareholders and 19% Diamond shareholders. Access was expecting to proceed to raise Naira 75 billion ($207 million) of capital and had got approval for a rights issue to happen in the first half of 2019, but they will no longer pursue this avenue as they have identified 150 billion Naira in revenue and cost synergies to be tapped over the next three years.

Entrepreneurs get support from UBA Foundation and Kenya’s Youth Fund

The UBA Foundation and the Youth Enterprise Development Fund in Kenya have signed a partnership to support Kenyan entrepreneurs who participate in the fourth cycle of the Tony Elumelu Foundation entrepreneurship development program.

The UBA Foundation is the CSR arm of the UBA Group, a pan-African bank that is in 19 countries. It focuses on economic empowerment, education, and the environment, while the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship program is a flagship of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) . The program is an investment of $100 million that aims to nurture 10,000 African startups to create 1 million jobs and generate $10 billion in revenue growth over ten years. This will be through funding, training, mentorship, counseling and networking for the startups to trade across Africa and beyond.

Entrepreneurs apply to the TEF and Youth Fund.

The CEO of the Youth Fund Josiah Moriasi said the organization had advanced Kshs 12.2 billion to 1.4 million Kenyans through their core products such as LPO financing, talanta loans (for creatives), and startup loans. Ronald Osumba, Chairman of the Youth Fund, said that while the Fund had been in the news for some wrong reasons, it had also supported many young successful people,  not just with finance, but also business support, market linkages, and business spaces.  They were also working to reduce the failure rate of startups through market aggregation models in counties around the country.

This year the TEF program is already seeing a record number of entries from 54 countries since the window for applications opened on January 1.   It runs up to March 1, 2018, for applicants to submit their startups or business ideas and the selected entrepreneurs  will participate in the 2018 cycle that runs from May 1 to December 2018. 

The Tony Elumelu Foundation program has 3,000 alumni now, and over 200 Kenyans have benefited from the program, each having received $5,000 (~Kshs 500,000) as seed capital for their businesses which they have then used to scale and grow into other product and service lines. This year, UBA Kenya officials hope to enroll more Kenyan in the program as the country has run a distant second to Nigeria in past applications and enrollment.

The application process is rigorous but it pays off. TEF entrepreneurs get twelve weeks of training, mentorship, $5,000 of seed capital and access to the alumni network and further funding opportunities.  Kenyan entrepreneurs who complete the application to the TEF site can also apply to the Youth Fund for another $5,000 in matched funding.