Fidelity Bank Ghana has been awarded the Best Regional Bank Award in the West Africa sub-region.
The bank won the prestigious award at the 16th Edition of the African Banker Awards Gala Ceremony held on May 26, on the sidelines of the ongoing 2022 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
Fidelity Bank was the sole indigenous bank to pick up an award on the night. The bank’s total assets value as at the end of the first quarter of 2022 stands at GHS 14.7bn.
The bank has a liquidity ratio of 204% and a Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) of 24%, above the Bank of Ghana’s regulatory 13% minimum CAR requirement.
Banks such as the Standard Bank Group and Ecobank with subsidiaries in Ghana, also won awards on the night picking up the African Bank of the Year Award and SME Bank of the Year Award respectively.
Top winners for this year’s edition of the African Banker Awards were Ms Vera Songwe, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, who was awarded the African Banker Icon Award for her tireless work in providing governments with the fiscal ammunition to deal with the impact of COVID-19.
And Angola’s Finance Minister, Hon Vera Esperança dos Santos Daves de Sousa, who was recognised as the Finance Minister of the Year for her stand-out work in restoring stability and market confidence to her country.
Another notable recognition was for Michael Atingi-Ego, the Deputy Central Bank Governor, Uganda, who won Central Bank Governor of the Year. Earlier this year, his predecessor, Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile, Ugandan economist and Governor of the Central Bank of Uganda, passed away, leaving a void which will not be easily filled. However, the Central Bank of Uganda was one of the star performers this year, having managed to stave off inflation and achieve currency stability in an extremely challenging environment.
In his speech, Omar Ben Yedder, Chair of the African Banker Awards Organising Committee and Publisher of African Banker magazine, said that it is time we focused our efforts on strengthening our domestic capabilities to finance growth.
“We need strong institutions and we need to start with our commercial and development banks. If we have learnt anything from the past two years, and even more so these last two months, it is that we need to achieve financial sovereignty if we are to own our growth agenda,” he stated.
Other winners include legendary Nigerian banker Atedo Peterside, founder of IBTC Bank, which he merged with Stanbic 15 years ago, who won Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to banking. The success of IBTC, he said, was built on everyone buying into the mission of the bank and shared values and culture.
President of Afreximbank, Benedict Oramah won African Banker of the Year for his work in growing Afreximbank’s balance sheet and making it one of the leading banks in terms of its response to Covid-19 by providing much needed liquidity and solutions when it came to vaccine acquisition, as well as its lead role in helping create the conditions so that businesses can take advantage of the AfCFTA once all negotiations are finalised.
The winner of the African Bank of the Year, for the second year running, was awarded to the Standard Bank Group, the continent’s largest bank by assets and also by tier one capital.
Source norvanreports
