Business
FirstBank Celebrates 2021 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week, Calls for All to Adopt Kindness as a Way of Life
The best definition of kindness is not one provided by any of the world’s best dictionaries but one demonstrated by how we treat others on a daily basis. Kindness is a universal language that does not require any special knowledge, exposure, skills, training or background to understand and appreciate it as a beneficiary or observer of a kind act. Neither is any special knowledge or training required to show and extend it to others. Just as anyone and everyone can be shown acts of kindness, all persons without exception can and ought to show and extend acts of kindness to others. Kindness flows from deep within us, from the better angels of our nature. Hence, the common idiom “the milk of human kindness”.
This is probably the backdrop to the theme “Kindness…a Way of Life”, which FirstBank has chosen for commemoration of its 2021 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week (CR&S Week). This year’s CR&S Week, scheduled to hold from 26th – 30th July 2021, will feature Kind Comments Days, visits to orphanages/less privilege homes, webinars focused on the kindness theme, SPARK school engagement among other activities – lined up for each of the days. The yearly CR&S Week is a dedicated week designed to offer FirstBank staff, customers and the public opportunities to demonstrate the milk of human kindness that flows in them and give their time and resources to defined causes. It seeks to amplify FirstBank’s innate culture of giving and volunteering as embodied in its Employee Giving and Volunteering programme.
The Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week was introduced in 2017 as part of the bank’s longstanding Employee Giving and Volunteering programme created to enable and encourage staff to give back to society through donations and volunteering. Specially designed to reignite acts of random kindness in the society with events that are tailored to reorient people towards the right values, it provides a veritable platform for encouraging the citizenry to intentionally create positive impact in their immediate environment. One of the main highlights of the first CR&S Week was the SPARK Initiative. S.P.A.R.K stands for Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness. But originally the “S” stood for “Staff”. It was changed to “Start” to broaden the initiative beyond just staff and encourage everyone else to be part of the kindness brigade. Also, “P” originally stood for “Promoting” but was changed to “Performing” to convey the sense that participants are equally involved in actually doing kind acts and not only promoting kindness.
Held between 25 – 29 September 2017 with “Promoting Kindness: Putting You First” as theme, the maiden CR&S Week was the first of its kind in Nigeria’s financial services industry. It highlighted the role FirstBank’s corporate citizenship interventions was playing in driving positive impact across various communities – all within one compact week. It was aimed at encouraging people everywhere to step out of their comfort zones, shift attention from themselves and their personal needs to others in society who have not been as fortunate as they have and perform a random act of kindness towards them. The first edition of the CR&S Week provided opportunity for FirstBank staff to give their time and resources to promote acts of random kindness within their communities and contribute to the welfare and well-being of others through giving and visits to orphanages/homes of the less fortunate and internally displaced people (IDPs). Within the same Week the bank held career counselling sessions with secondary school students across the six geo-political regions in Nigeria with FirstBank staff coordinating the impactful sessions that inculcated the values of financial literacy and inclusion in young students. Also, staff had the opportunity to nominate beneficiaries they believe are deserving of random of acts of kindness. Through this activity, Baby Ijeoma was nominated as one of the beneficiary that received corrective heart surgery in India which was in partnership with Vama Wave Foundation. The impact of the first edition went beyond Nigeria as FirstBank’s subsidiaries in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK also participated, benefitting people and at least 22 charities in six countries.
The second edition of the CR&S Week held from 19 – 23 June 2018. Themed “Touching Lives: You First”, the 2018 Week was intended to demonstrate FirstBank brand promise to always put stakeholders first. It focused mainly on five key initiatives/activities. First was the launch of a partnership with VisionSpring to advance social impact by providing vision screening and affordable eyeglasses for 10,000 low-income earners. This aligned with the bank’s financial inclusion and financial literacy approach of promoting accessible and affordable financial products and services to disadvantaged groups with the goal of bringing these marginalised populations into the mainstream economy, improving their chances for resilient livelihoods and financial stability. Second were giving and visits to orphanages/less privilege homes. This was the biggest platform for employee engagement during the week. It followed a needs assessment of the orphanages to be visited to enable employees donate appropriate items, and employees responded generously, donating at a scale that had never been done before. In all, eight countries witnessed this initiative while more than 26 charities participated.
Celebration of the UN International Widows’ Day on 23rd June 2018, which coincided with the last day of the CR&S Week, was the third activity. Driven by the International Women’s Society (IWS) in Lagos with whom the bank partnered to organise an empowerment outreach for 500 widows in Lagos, it provided start-up capital and capacity building required to successfully run start-ups and small businesses, to the widows. Fourth was a Career Counselling Day for over 10,000 senior secondary school students, as part of the broader FutureFirst programme of the bank aimed at ensuring the youth are empowered to be financially independent through fulfilling careers and the right financial knowledge. Fifth and final was the SPARK (Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness) initiative, which included a SPARK Day set aside in the bank for people to act within their individual spheres of influence to promote kindness. The initiative also saw the bank receiving about 200 internal and external nominations of people deserving of kindness, out of which 24 beneficiaries were to emerge. The 2018 Week was marked across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones with two states from each zone, totalling 12 states in all. It was also commemorated in the six countries/markets outside Nigeria where FirstBank already had subsidiaries – UK, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Sierra Leone and Senegal.
In 2019, the CR&S Week held from 1 – 6 July 2019 with the theme “Ripples of Kindness: Putting You First”. The theme was informed by the bank’s belief that every act of kindness (regardless of how little or in whatever form) ignites a ripple effect that goes on without end. The year’s CR&S Week focused mainly on the SPARK initiative, which had gained so much traction since its humble beginnings in 2017. A Kindness Manifesto for both internal stakeholders and external stakeholders was introduced. There were other new activities or initiatives. A Nice Comments Day was introduced for the first time and scheduled to hold on the first day of the CR&S Week. The basis for it, according to the bank’s committee that oversaw the planning and implementation of the 2019 CRS Week, is the important place of words in the “kindness ecosystem”. The committee underlined this point when it noted as follows: “One of the truest reflections of how kind we are is our choice of words. That’s why we have created Nice Comments Day to help build a kinder world [through kind words].”
Another new initiative introduced in 2019 was the SPARK School Engagement, which involved launching the SPARK initiative in schools to promote the 3Cs projected as the pillars of kindness – Compassion, Civility and Charity. The schools – secondary schools across Nigeria – were to be visited to educate students on acts of kindness, encouraging them to make kindness a lifestyle. A crowd-funding initiative was also added in 2019 to enable both employees and external stakeholders donate to defined humanitarian causes, such as supporting widows, sending children (from indigent homes) to school and providing health care for the physically challenged and the old. As at August 2019, nearly N7 million had been raised through the crowd-funding initiative.
The regular initiatives/activities were also retained in 2019. There were visits to orphanages/less privilege homes. Widows’ empowerment was organised in collaboration with International Women’s Society (IWS), Nigeria to empower a select number of widows across Nigeria. The implementation in Nigeria covered the six geopolitical zones with activities held in four states per zone, amounting to 24 states in all. Six subsidiaries of FirstBank also implemented the programme in their markets/countries – UK, Ghana, DRC, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Senegal. In all, 25 schools benefitted with 6,000 students participating in terms of the School Engagement; 50 charities and NGOs, including Leap Africa and IWS, were partnered. Over 20,000 orphans/less privilege people including widows were reached and impacted.
No CR&S Week could take place in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions on public gatherings and visits. But FirstBank did not just fold its hand and sit idly. The bank did something absolutely amazing, demonstrating uncommon solidarity with a vulnerable segment of society – children. Realising that the harsh effects of the COVID-19 crisis were borne disproportionally by children, whose education and thus future were being endangered due to the lockdown and prolonged closure of schools, FirstBank embarked on a mission to do something about it. Working with partners, such as IBM, UNESCO, Robert & John, Curious Learning and the Lagos State Government, it launched the bold and ambitious e-Learning Initiative designed to move one million children onto safe online learning platform. The Initiative was to minimise the disruption to children’s education, ensuring that they remained fully engaged during the difficult period and are not left behind by their peers across the (developed) world. There are already over 150,000 students benefitting from the e-Learning initiative in the height of the COVID-19 crises. In addition, the Bank deployed communication material to create more awareness of the SPARK Initiative and to sensitize staff, customers and the public during the unprecedented times.
What greater demonstration of kindness could there have been in 2020 given the circumstances the whole world found itself, especially vulnerable children? So there may not have been a CR&S Week in 2020 but the same kindness narrative that has characterised all activities of the various CR&S Week since 2017 clearly shone through FirstBank’s COVID-19 response, especially its e-Learning Initiative. In future, people would probably easily be forgiven if they assumed the e-Learning Initiative represented FirstBank’s CR&S Week in 2020. FirstBank has demonstrated uncommon consistency over the years to its Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week and the ideals it seeks to project through the platform. This has earned the bank the right to make the bold call that is the theme of this year’s CR&S Week.
The question is whether we will heed the clarion call to adopt kindness as a way of life. Will we go out there and extend kindness to others in ways that will make them realise that kindness is not just a word taken from the dictionary but an act that should always be expressed to others? Will we embrace kindness as our new way of life? Will we commit to making our everyday a Kind Comments Day, thus giving others permission and the strength to do the same? Will we Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness towards all and make them feel obligated to start acting kindly towards other people as their new lifestyle?
Culled from Nigerian Tribune
Business
Shareholders back Access Holdings’ long-term value creation strategy-Investors confident of earnings outlook
Shareholders have expressed confidence in Access Holdings Plc’s long-term value creation strategy as Nigeria’s largest financial services group continues implementation of a deliberate plan to consolidate its pan-African and global investments into greater sustainable returns to investors.Speaking on the outcome of the group’s annual general meeting, shareholders, according to The Nation newspaper, said they were confident that Access Holdings has been well positioned for sustainable growth and high value-creation in the years ahead.They said the performance of the group in the past 15 months highlighted the fundamental strength of Access Holdings, which provides a strong reassurance on the current strategic shift from investments to value creation and shareholders’ return.With nearly one million shareholders, Access Holdings, according to The Nation newspaper, has one of the largest shareholders base across Africa. More than three-quarters of the shareholders are retail minority shareholders, making them significant stakeholders in the group. Domestic minority retail shareholders typically account for nearly half of transactions at the Nigerian stock market.Shareholders said they believed Access Holdings could translate its strong fundamentals into exciting returns while simultaneously building on the group’s vision of being Africa’s gateway to the global financial system.Founding Coordinator and Leader, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN), Sir Sunny Nwosu, said shareholders have no fear about the future of Access Holdings having seen its historic transformation from a mid-tier bank to becoming Nigeria’s biggest bank in many parameters.He explained that the understanding shown by shareholders over the non-declaration of dividend for the 2025 business year was based on both past performance and future expectation.President, Association for the Advancement of Rights of Nigerian Shareholders (AARNS), Dr Faruk Umar, said Access Holdings has endeared itself to shareholders with its performance overtime.According to him, shareholders were looking at the bigger picture and were confident that the group would deliver impressive long-term values as outlined under its strategic plan.“We’ve no cause to worry about Access Holdings. True, dividend is important to us shareholders, but then, when you take everything together, you see that it’s like keeping your money in a compounding interest account, you’re going to get the bumper return at the end,” Umar said.National Chairman, New Dimension Shareholders Association, Mr. Patrick Ajudua said Access Holdings has experienced commendable growth, citing the group’s performance in 2025 when gross earnings rose to N5.53 trillion and total assets crossed N51.53 trillion.”As shareholders, we express our satisfaction with the company’s overall performance, particularly in the light of the decision not to distribute dividends this year. This decision was clarified as a necessary step to ensure compliance with Central Bank of Nigeria’s regulations,” Ajudua said.He said shareholders during the general meeting had underlined areas where they need the board and management to focus on, including the need to further address impairment charges on financial assets and cost optimisation.Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Boniface Okezie, according to The Nation newspaper, said the overall assessment of Access Holdings’ performance was strong.According to him, while the absence of dividend payment is notable, it shouldn’t solely determine a company’s performance.He underlined that part of shareholders’ trust in the board was to entrust the directors with the discretion to declare or not to declare dividend.He said: “With earnings per share so impressive at N13.48, the company is certainly capable of rewarding its shareholders for even as much as N5 per share. We know that it’s CBN’s rules that posed challenges for dividend disbursement. As a holding company, the performance of the bank, which serves as its main subsidiary, significantly impacts the overall situation. If the bank doesn’t distribute dividends, it naturally limits the holding company’s ability to do so as well”.He urged regulators to consider the impact of their policies on investors, highlighting the importance of dividends in reflecting a company’s success.“When a company performs well, fulfilling the dividend expectation becomes crucial for maintaining investors’ satisfaction, especially for those who have supported the bank during challenging times,” Okezie said.Regarding future projections, he expressed confidence in the management’s projections for returns, noting the clarity of the company’s vision and growth strategy.He pointed out that setting clear goals is essential for growth while commending the board and management of the group for their painstaking efforts at carrying shareholders along in the company’s growth plan.He advised the board to maintain its focus and drive on business success, urging the directors to consider proposing an interim dividend by the end of this financial year or by September, to help address the impact of the previous non-payment on shareholders as well as reassure and align shareholders’ interests with the company’s overall performance.National Coordinator, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN), Mr. Moses Igbrude, according to The Nation newspaper, expressed confidence in Access Holdings’ earnings outlook noting that the company stands out as a robust and well-structured financial institution poised to provide substantial value to its shareholders.He said shareholders were confident the management team possesses the necessary skills and expertise to effectively leverage the group’s assets and resources, ensuring that they meet their projections and fulfill the commitments made to investors.Access Holdings saw 16.2 per cent growth in pre-tax profit to N1.01 trillion in 2025, driving by impressive growth in core banking interest income, which rose to N1.36 trillion and a 41 per cent growth in net fees and commission incomes, which jumped to N585 billion. Operating income rose by 23.9 per cent to N3.17 trillion. Gross earnings had risen from N4.88 trillion in 2024 to N5.53 trillion in 2025.The group’s total assets expanded to N51.56 trillion while shareholders’ funds rose to N4.33 trillion by December 2025. Cost to income ratio improved from 56.7 per cent to 51.7 per cent. Return on Average Equity (ROAE) remained high at 18.4 per cent.With earnings per share at N13.48, shareholders however approved the board’s position to focus on structural realignment of the group’s foreign investments in compliance with domestic regulatory space, which necessitated non-declaration of dividend for the 2025 financial year.In first quarter 2026, pre-tax profit stood at N272.1 billion as against N222.78 billion recorded in comparable period of 2025, putting the group on a strong footing to surpass its N1 trillion profit mark. Total assets rose to N54.44 trillion while total equity improved to N4.4 trillion by March 2026.Speaking at the AGM in Lagos, Chairman, Access Holdings Plc, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, reaffirmed the group’s strategic transition towards long-term value creation, balance sheet resilience, and disciplined growth, even as it navigates a dynamic and evolving operating environment.He said the group’s vision was anchored on the belief that the defining test of a financial institution is not merely its capacity for growth, but its ability to grow profitably, sustainably, and with discipline over time.“Periods of economic uncertainty often reveal more about an institution than periods of uninterrupted growth. Our focus remains on building a business that is not only growing, but improving in the quality, resilience, and sustainability of its earnings,” Aig-Imoukhuede said.He reiterated the strategic imperative underpinning the group’s next phase of growth.He said: “Our strategy, From Scale to Value, reflects the natural evolution of our journey. Scale created opportunity; value creation is how we fully realise it”.He noted that while the group continues to generate strong returns, ensuring that earnings per share consistently exceed the cost of capital remains central to unlocking sustainable shareholder value.He also acknowledged the significant unrealised value embedded within the group’s international subsidiaries and reiterated management’s focus on improving market recognition of that intrinsic value over time.“Our approach is clear: capital retained today must translate into greater value tomorrow and sustainable returns for our shareholders. Our responsibility is to justify the confidence of our shareholders by building an institution that endures, one defined by clarity of purpose, discipline of execution, and sustainable value creation over time,” Aig-Imoukhuede said.
Business
As Loan Defaults Rise, VeendHQ Says AI Recovered ₦69 Million from Delinquent Borrowers – Business
VeendHQ says its AI-powered credit platform, Vida AI, helped recover ₦69 million from a ₦172.5 million portfolio of loans that were more than 90 days overdue, in a pilot that highlights the growing role of technology in loan recovery and portfolio management.The result comes at a time when lenders are under increasing pressure to improve recovery outcomes while managing the cost, reputational risk, and operational burden associated with overdue loans. For many credit providers, the challenge is no longer only how quickly loans can be approved, but how effectively repayment can be monitored and delinquent loans can be recovered after disbursement.According to VeendHQ, the pilot delivered a 40 percent recovery rate on the overdue loan portfolio. The company said the result significantly outperformed traditional recovery benchmarks, where a five percent recovery rate on a similar loan book would amount to about ₦8.6 million.VeendHQ said the pilot demonstrates how Vida AI can support lenders beyond credit assessment, extending into repayment monitoring, collections, and recovery.“Credit access is only one side of lending. The bigger challenge for many lenders is what happens after disbursement,” said Olufemi Olanipekun, Co-founder and CEO of VeendHQ. “Vida AI helps lenders make smarter decisions across the credit lifecycle, from approval to repayment and recovery.”VeendHQ, a Nigerian fintech company building digital credit infrastructure, developed Vida AI as an artificial intelligence-powered platform for lenders, merchants, and financial institutions. The platform supports credit assessment, identity verification, repayment collections, and loan management workflows.With the recovery pilot, the company is positioning Vida AI beyond loan origination, as a tool for lenders seeking to improve repayment performance and manage overdue portfolios more efficiently.Delinquent loans remain a major cash-flow challenge for lenders. Once loans exceed 60 to 90 days past due, recovery becomes more difficult, expensive, and unpredictable. Traditional approaches such as manual calls, recovery agents, and legal escalation often increase costs without significantly improving recovery rates.VeendHQ said Vida AI’s recovery workflow enables lenders to upload overdue loan records, verify borrower information, assess repayment capacity, and trigger automated recovery actions. This gives lenders better visibility after disbursement and allows recovery teams to prioritize overdue portfolios more effectively.“If lenders cannot recover efficiently, they become more conservative with lending. That affects consumers, small businesses, and the wider credit market,” Olanipekun said. “Better recovery infrastructure gives lenders more confidence to lend, manage risk, and keep credit flowing.”The company said the recovery use case is especially relevant for banks, microfinance institutions, digital lenders, cooperatives, and merchants managing loans that are 60 to 180 days past due. It added that it plans to deepen Vida AI’s recovery capabilities for credit providers seeking to improve recovery performance without relying solely on manual methods.“As lending expands across Nigeria and Africa, recovery infrastructure is becoming as critical as origination,” Olanipekun said. “Tools that improve both will define which lenders can scale sustainably.”The pilot, VeendHQ says, points to a broader shift in the credit market: approval speed alone is no longer enough. Increasingly, lenders will be defined by how effectively they monitor repayment, recover overdue loans, and manage portfolio risk over time.
African Marketplace (AMP) is set to return for its highly anticipated second edition from October 10–12, 2026, at the prestigious Conrad Hotel Dubai, following the success of its landmark 2025 debut. The three-day event will once again convene some of the finest products, services, creatives, and innovators from Africa and the Caribbean, connecting them with global buyers, investors, policymakers, distributors, and cultural enthusiasts in one of the world’s most strategically connected trade capitals.African Marketplace is a pan-continental trade and cultural platform designed to spotlight Africa’s and the Caribbean’s finest export-ready brands, SMEs, and innovators, empowering them to scale internationally, unlock investment opportunities, and achieve global relevance. African Marketplace 2026 will showcase the richness of African and Caribbean heritage alongside contemporary innovation across fashion, furniture, art, cuisine, music, technology, wellness, and intellectual capital.Speaking on the announcement, Ibukun Awosika, Founder of African Marketplace and the Ibukun Awosika Leadership Academy (IALA), said: “African Marketplace 2025 was proof of concept. What the world witnessed in Dubai was not potential, it was excellence in full expression.” “For 2026, we are going even further. We are building on that foundation with greater scale, sharper commercial focus, and an even stronger declaration that Africa and the Caribbean are not waiting to be discovered. We are here. We are globally ready. And we are building our own tables. Dubai is where we invite the world to experience who we truly are.” She added.Through curated exhibitions, business networking, investment conversations, cultural showcases, and strategic partnerships, African Marketplace continues to position itself as a leading platform connecting Afro-Caribbean excellence to global opportunity. More than an exhibition, AMP serves as both a commercial gateway and cultural platform; creating meaningful opportunities for trade, investment, collaboration, and cross-cultural exchange on a global scale.As the platform grows year after year, AMP remains committed to building a lasting ecosystem where commerce, culture, innovation, and identity converge.EXHIBITOR REGISTRATION IS NOW OPENBusinesses, investors, partners, and attendees interested in participating in African Marketplace Dubai 2026 can learn more at:www.theafricanmarketplace.orgFor media inquiries, sponsorship opportunities, or partnership proposals, please contact:info@theafricanmarketplace.orgAbout African MarketplaceAfrican Marketplace (AMP) is a pan-African trade and culture platform connecting Africa and the Caribbean to global markets through commerce, creativity, innovation, and strategic partnerships. Hosted annually in Dubai, AMP provides export-ready businesses and entrepreneurs with access to international visibility, investment opportunities, and global networks.
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