West Africa’s premier financial institution, FirstBank Plc has partnered with CFA Society Nigeria to host the Ethics Challenge, which is holding today and tomorrow in Abuja and Lagos for the regional and national levels respectively.
The bank says the partnership is a furtherance of its commitment to promote business ethics, professional excellence and education, which is a reflection of Firstbank’s Endowment programme.
Expressing her delight on FirstBank’s support and participation in the CFA Ethics Challenge, the Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Folake Ani- Mumuney noted that FirstBank pride itself in being exemplary in ensuring that global best practices are upheld in adherence to ethical standards across the organizational practices and activities.
“We recognize the impact of the CFA Society Nigeria through its giant strides in fostering Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct amongst university students and other touchpoints in the society in preparing them to overcome ethical challenges that they may face in the workplace environment”.
Also commenting, CFA Society Nigeria President, Mr. Banji Fehintola, said: “the annual Ethics Challenge embodies CFA Society Nigeria’s mission to promote the highest standards of ethics in our investment and financial services industry. It touches on many of CFA Institute’s Future of Finance six areas of focus which include: Transparency and Fairness, Regulation and Enforcement, and Safeguarding the System. It also promotes ethical awareness and fosters a healthy investment industry that works for the ultimate benefit of society. Through our collaboration with First Bank of Nigeria Limited to run this competition annually, we will continue to invest in our university students and we hope to build the commitment of our future professionals to operate according to sound ethical principles”.
The Ethics Challenge is designed to increase students’ awareness of the ethical dilemmas and issues they may face when they enter the investment management industry. At the Ethics Challenge, students are given an ethics case study to analyze, evaluate, recommend and present to a panel of judges. To determine the winning team, the judges provide feedback based on the identification and understanding of the ethical issues in the case, the recommendations provided by the depth of the analysis, quality of the presentation, and responses to the judges’ questions.
The 2018 winner, Obafemi Awolowo University, would compete with 15 other higher institutions in the country to defend its trophy. Babcock University, Bowen University, Covenant University, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Mountain Top University, University of Calabar, University of Ibadan and University of Lagos are the schools competing in the Lagos preliminary round.
Other schools are the University of Abuja, University of Maiduguri, Bayero University, University of Ilorin, University of Nigeria and Madonna University in the Abuja based preliminary round.
The competition will be judged by Mrs. Adeola Asabia, Member, Board of Trustees, Business Ethics Chair, University of Lagos; Musa Bagudu, CFA, Head, External Funds Management Office, Central Bank of Nigeria; Kunle Anida, CFA, Director, Deals Advisory, PWC Nigeria amongst others.