Kennedy Uzoka
United Bank for Africa Plc beat other nominees to become Africa’s best bank in the digital category at the prestigious Euromoney awards in London.
The Euromoney awards ceremony, held on Wednesday, covers more than 20 global product categories, best-in-class awards and best banks in over 100 countries around the world.
It recognises institutions that have demonstrated leadership, innovation and momentum in the markets they operate in.
UBA was said to have steadily included new and emerging trends to its range of solutions in branches across subsidiaries and on digital platforms.
The Euromoney award, which recognized innovative products and services introduced by the bank in recent times and targeted at meeting customer needs, came on the heels of recent awards to UBA, including Finnacle Client Innovation Awards and Best Bank Awards won by five of its subsidiaries across Africa by The Bankers Magazine.
UBA was also declared the Best Bank in Africa in 2017.
Group Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, United Bank for Africa, Kennedy Uzoka, thanked the organizers for the recognition.
According to Uzoka, the award affirmed the bank’s strong management and un-matched commitment to service excellence.
“For us at UBA, the award is quite an accomplishment, considering Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook and President Emmanuel Macron of France’s recent endorsement, both of which centred around highlighting the distinguishing value of UBA’s leading digital opportunities.”
“Also, our recent launch of Leo in 15 African countries is evidence that UBA has on its agenda the objective of digital creativity especially in service for our trusted customer base across the African continent. This award reminds us as an institution not to relent in our pursuit of excellence and continue to lead the new digital age in Africa within the financial services industry.”
Clive Horwood, Euromoney Magazine’s Editor, explained that “despite fierce competition, one bank stood out in the last year for the inventiveness of its efforts in digital banking: United Bank for Africa. One of its signature launches in Nigeria was Leo, an e-chat service using artificial intelligence to help customers execute transactions on Facebook.”
“Recently, Mark Zuckerberg gave the nod to the service during a talk at a recent developers’ conference – a sign of its recognition at the highest levels of digital technology. The bank also recently added retina and fingerprint recognition and technology to reduce business travel greenhouse emissions. If it fulfils its ambitious plans to partner with fintech companies, UBA could continue to lead African banks in the area of digitization,” Horwood added.