By Martin Ekpeke
Acclaimed largest financial institution in Nigeria, Firstbank says it has planned to support the general growth of the country’s economy by increasing the number of customer accounts from the 14.5 million to 30 million in the course of three to four years.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Dr Adesola Adeduntan disclosed this in an Interview with World Finance. She said the planned is in tandem to move into the execution phase of its current business strategy, which is about financial inclusion and leveraging technology to pull more people into the banking segment.
“We do have this very ambitious plan to grow the number of customer accounts from where it is today – about 14.5 million customer accounts – we plan to grow that to about 30 million customer accounts in the course of three to four years,” he stated.
He added that Firstbank has the largest branch network – in excess of 750 branches, the largest number of ATMs, the largest customer base and the largest number of subscribers, making it to be fully embedded into the economy.
Speaking on support for businesses, Dr. Adeduntan said FirstBank is giving very targeted support to Small and Medium Enterprise, revealing that the bank is the biggest lender to SMEs in the country, and that will continue to be an area of focus to the bank.