New Telegraph

Fidelity Bank anchors growth strategy on COVID-19 revelations

 

 

….targets Tier 1 status, 7.5% market share

 

Still reveling from its high growth profile despite the tough impact of coronavirus on the economy over the last one year, Fidelity Bank Plc has promised to get stronger by taking advantage of the opportunities thrown up by the pandemic.

 

Disclosing this yesterday during a media parley in Lagos, the Managing Director of the bank, Mrs. Nneka Onyeali- Ikpe, said the pandemic, though impacted negatively on the economy, also opened up new areas of growth to discerning investors.

 

According to her, in the next one year or more, the bank will be focusing on doing business in those sectors, which include agriculture, healthcare; hospitals and diagnostic laboratory  services, telecommunication, and infrastructure, which, of course has to do with roads, railways; and technology, with emphasis on fintech. She also said agriculture, where the bank had seen growth in the past, would be adequately explored.

 

The managing director said: “We are laying emphasis on these areas.” Onyeali-Ikpe, who said her target was to take the bank to Tier 1 status within the shortest possible time, also said the financial institition was already targeting market share of 7.5 with regard to deposit.

 

Speaking on the bank’s support for SMEs, she described Fidelity Bank as proudly one of the best in this area, saying “we intend to build a centre for SMEs free legal services in the event of going into any contract.

 

“We have loans for everybody, and we also drive financial inclusion through our agency banking.

We have advanced in technology and we are adding more products to our platform. We encourage our customers to key into our digital process.” On the bank’s effort to encourage diaspora investment, she disclosed that about 6000 people around the world had signed into the bank’s programme in that regard.

 

Describing the last six months as exciting, the managing director said: “God willing, we will deliver more before the end of the year. Onyeali-Ikpe, who is anchoring her growth plan on a 7-point agenda, also lay emphasis on growing the human capacity of the bank in order to ensure the workers keep abreast with emphasis on improving their welfare.

 

As part of the incentives for staff, she said everyone of them, no matter when he or she was employed, was entitled to car loan as part of protection against COVID-19. While laying emphasis on accelerated growth for Fidelity Bank, she pledged that the bank would serve the customers excellently well, saying the reason was to ensure “we remain the first choice.”

 

Among other strategies to ensure growth, and as part of the 7-point agenda, the bank focuses on brand architecture, brand building and refresh, talent development and transformation, product and service delivery, agility and performance discipline, digital transformation, and regulatory compliance. “In accordance with this, the  bank intends to embark on an innovation frive through the implementation of new processes, techniques.

 

The bank is also executing fresh ideas to ensure continuous process improvement, reduce cost to serve, increase competitiveness, improve brand recognition and value, build new partnerships and relationships, drive turnover, and increase profitability. “It also aims to increase top-of-mind awareness of the Fidelity brand by external and internal stakeholders.

 

“It will also create a future readily supported by a high performing and empowered workforce.

 

This will be achieved by deepening the skills and competencies of staff across the bank, entrenching a culture of high performance, and embedding new ways of working in the bank. So far, the commencement of capacity building training for staff and senior management training are some of the initiatives implemented.

 

“Also, the service excellence is intended to build brand loyalty through personalised and seamless customer experience delivery. “This is already underway with the award-winning virtual assistant IVY.

 

This revolutionary chatbot handles simple tasks like account opening to complex tasks such as complaint resolution, bill payment, transferring users to a live agent, loans, fixed deposit applications, and answering random questions.

 

“The bank’s digital transformation involves an end-toend digitisation across all facets of the business. In line with this, the bank has launched a novel digital service —Pay Yourself —which revolutionised payday for salary earners and SMEs,” she said

Read Previous

Kwara APC: The battle gets messier

Read Next

NPA moves to acquire equipment for Lekki Port

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *