The Financial Sector Development for Africa, (FSD Africa) an agency funded by the United Kingdom Government through UK Aid has reiterated its commitment to provide more support for Diamond Bank Plc on its financial inclusion drive.
This was stated at a dinner hosted by the Bank in honour of visiting executives from FSD Africa. FSD Africa is a market catalyst that applies a combination of resources, expertise and research to address financial market failures to deliver a lasting impact for an efficient, robust and inclusive market.
Speaking at the dinner, Director, Financial Services, FSD Africa, Paul Musoke said, “We commend Diamond Bank for employing professionalism in all their dealings with us. Even though the agency had partnerships with other banks and organizations across the continent, the partnership with Diamond Bank was essentially our longest and most successful partnership amongst all. We did not only provide funding but also worked closely with the team on ground.”
Responding to Paul’s comments on the successful partnership between FSD Africa and Diamond Bank, Uzoma Dozie, CEO, Diamond Bank, took the opportunity to highlight the factors behind their success. According to him, “First of all, what I would say is that when we decided to go beyond this journey of redefining how we wanted to engage the Nigerian market, I don’t think that we could have done it using the old ways of banking, which was, you know, doing everything by yourself, and I think our successes achieved so far are as a result of partnership & collaboration with donor agencies such as EFIna, Women’s World Banking (WWB) and FSDA.”
Head, BETA propositions, Diamond Bank, Njideka Nwabueze spoke on how the Bank had worked with Women’s World Banking to close the financial inclusion gap by creating products that would provide customers with access to financial services. According to her, “After extensive research, we launched the BETA proposition in 2013: an account that enabled customers to save towards the rainy day’’. BETA targets market traders thus supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The proposition has reached over 600,000 clients (over 70% of whom engage in trade). Their savings enhances their ability to manage economic shocks.
Director, Strategic Partnerships, World Women’s Banking (WWB), Gul Lacson, in his remark, said, “Diamond Bank is a strong institution with visionary leadership and strong long-term commitment and Women’s World Banking also brings to the table competence garnered by global experience”.