Financial Inclusiveness / Women Economic Empowerment
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Fidelity Bank champions financial inclusion to stimulate economic growth and alleviate poverty.
The bank’s internal policy aligns with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS), leveraging partnerships with government, private sector, and development agencies. Targeting youths, women, MSMEs, and the North, Fidelity Bank has initiated various programs, including account openings for unbanked women and cash transfer payments for the unbanked. Creation and Partnerships with agents and fintechs have expanded reach. The bank also supports digital financial services and women’s economic empowerment. Recent efforts include opening thousands of new accounts in Northern Nigeria and scaling up agent banking activities to reach underserved communities.
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Agency Banking
Area Konnect provides access to financial services within your community. Our authorized Agents process transactions quickly and easily via platforms such as Point-of–Sale (POS) terminals or Mobile Phones.
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Our Commitment to SMEs
At Fidelity Bank, our SME banking strategy is driven by a commitment to empowering small and medium-sized enterprises. We aim to create lasting value for entrepreneurs by addressing current challenges and preparing for future needs. Through tailored financial products, capacity-building programs, and innovative digital solutions, we empower SMEs to thrive. From the business start-up, our goal is to set a standard for SME banking practices in Nigeria and beyond, fostering economic development, transformation and supporting the next generation of business leaders.
Our antecedent and many strides in the SME banking space positions us as Nigeria’s premier SME bank and indeed has arguably earned us the go-to SME bank in Nigeria.
- 390,000+ SME Customers
- 250,000+ SME Customers on Free Account Maintenance Fee concession
- N720BN SME Low-cost Deposit
- Funded over 500,000 MSMEs with over N100BN
- Empowered over 500,000 MSMEs through our SME Radio Programme.
- Best Bank for SMEs in Nigeria by the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2023.
- Top Bank Supporting MSMEs at BusinessDay Media 2023 Awards
- Best SME Bank Nigeria 2022 by the Global Banking and Finance Awards.
- DBN 2022 Highest Disbursing Bank to SMEs
- Tribune’s Best SME-Supporting Bank of the Year
- Selected as one of the 10-SME Friendly Banks by Bank of Industry (BOI)
- MSME & Entrepreneurship Financing Bank of the Year - 2021 BusinessDay Banks & Other Financial Institutions (BAFI) Awards.
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HerFidelity
HerFidelity is Fidelity Banks proposition designed to give Financial Support, Business Education, Entrepreneurship Encouragement, and Health & Wellness benefits for all Nigerian Women.
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Initiatives and Developments in the Financial Inclusion
In our bid to deepen financial Inclusion, the Bank is still deliberately addressing all the financial inclusion challenges by focusing on the five demographics emphasized by CBN in the revised National Financial Inclusion Strategy documents. These include Youths, Women, North, MSMEs, and financially excluded/underserved locations across the country.
The Bank has continuously conducted campus activations at different tertiary institutions to include more youths (aged 18-35) in the financial sector by adopting the Fidelity Bank campus activation train. This year’s program tagged “Flex 100 Reward “provides financial literacy and inclusion for youths and a reward campaign. This year’s campaign was aimed at rewarding youths who open a Flex account through any of our platforms with a minimum balance of N1,000 with an extra N1,000. The reward is opened to the first 100 youths to open a Flex account daily.
Institution | Date | Accounts Opened |
Bayero University Kano | October, 2023 | 502 Flex accounts were successfully opened |
University of Calabar | 25th - 29th September, 2023 | 700 accounts were successfully |
College of Education Nsugbe | 5th – 12th August,2023 | 576 Flex accounts were successfully opened |
Benue State University | September 15, 2023 | 400 new flex accounts |
The Central Bank of Nigeria appointed Fidelity Bank to participate in driving digital financial services penetration in 16 selected cash-intensive markets in Northern Nigeria. This initiative is premised on taking advantage of the CBN’s Naira Redesign and Cashless policies to onboard traders and merchants in identified cash-intensive markets in Nigeria. These include livestock, grains, and other specialized markets in far-flung rural communities. The focus of the initiative is not cash evacuation, but to deepen financial inclusion and boost the adoption of alternative digital channels to minimize the use of cash in day-to-day transactions in the market segments.
This initiative created a platform for financial literacy in the North, developed solutions to drive financial inclusion, Educated the target market about alternative banking and payment channels and drove adoption of the same.
Kiosks and Parasols were deployed at the Markets, market leaders and traders were trained, Agents and merchants were recruited and onboarded, POS Terminals were configured, and awareness was created with branded gift items.
S/N | STATES | NORTH MARKETS |
1 | Kano | Dawanau International Market |
2 | Kano | Kachako Market |
3 | Kano | Singa Market |
4 | Katsina | Mai'Aduwa Market |
5 | Kaduna | Saminaka Market |
6 | Maiduguri | Gambaru Market |
7 | Maiduguri | Abadam Market |
8 | Kebbi | Kamba Market |
9 | Sokoto | Illela Market |
10 | Bauchi | Chira Market |
11 | Yobe | Potiskum Market |
12 | Yobe | Tulo Market |
13 | Jigawa | Gujungu Market |
14 | Jigawa | Mai'Gatari Market |
15 | Gombe | Cattle Market |
16 | Gombe | Cham Market |
The Bank organized a business conference in partnership with LCCI in November for SMEs themed, “Powering Nigerian Businesses for Growth” which had over 200 people in attendance and had top experts on the panel like Ms. Tosin Ojo, CFA (Principal, Sahel Capital), Mr. Yemi Osinubi, CFA (CEO, Helf Africa), Dr. Segun Musa, Deputy National President of the Nigeria Cargo Airport Chapter of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF)., Sir Elvis Emecheta (MD/CEO Zevis Pharmaceutical Ltd).
The Bank participated in the Lagos International Trade Fair between 3rd – 12th Nov. 2023. The Bank’s Regional Branches were present at the fair with the Sales team driving sales during the Fair.
Over 100 Market storms were held at different Regions across the 3 directorates in 2023. The storms provided avenues for financial literacy, business advisory, business empowerment, and financial inclusions.
The Bank is continuously growing the number of Agents on our Agency Banking Platform (CEVA) and is in partnership with super-agents, Agent aggregators, and FinTechs to further grow this number, drive financial inclusion, and expand the Bank’s reach. The Bank has over 30,000 Agents and over 7,000 POS Terminals to cater to the underserved segments.