FirstBank Leads Payment Cards Issuance with 10 Million Cards

Posted by African Examiner Business News, Latest Headlines Tuesday, October 31st, 2017

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The premier financial institution and Nigeria’s most valuable bank brand, First Bank of Nigeria Limited has been named the first financial institution in Nigeria and the West Africa sub-region to issue 10 million cards to customers across the country. This makes FirstBank the second bank in Africa to achieve this feat. With this milestone, the Bank currently processes over 30% of the card transactions in the entire banking industry.

The groundbreaking accomplishment is reminiscent of a similar milestone achieved two years ago when the Bank in December, 2015 and May 2016, was named the first financial institution in the country to achieve sustained alternative channels transaction volumes of 100 million transactions in December 2015 and May 2016. FirstBank has sustained its edge in payment card issuance with its Instant issuance/Instant activation technology, which was pioneered about 7 years ago. This has also informed the Bank’s consistency in maintaining the highest active Card ratio in the industry.

According to the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Adesola Adeduntan “delivering this feat is a testament to the Bank’s brand promise to put our customers first and continuously improve our business to serve them better”. We can attest that our customers have become more technology savvy and we will continue to encourage this attitude with our commitment to world class service delivery as we work to ensure optimal performance and availability of all our alternative channels, to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers. The bank currently processes over 78% of its customer transactions through self-service channels.

It is worthy of note that FirstBank recently won three Interswitch awards in Electronic Payment as the fastest Mobile Penetration Bank across Africa, the Highest Card Transacting Bank and the Highest Issuer of Verve Cards. These are clear indications that the giant strides taken by the Sub-Saharan leading bank brand towards fostering its banking technologies are well aligned to the fast-paced technological advancement in today’s ever evolving financial ecosystem”.