STERLING Bank Plc has won the best company in financial inclusion award at the SERAs CSR Africa 2017 awards held in Lagos weekend.
The theme of this year’s edition of the awards is ‘Transformational Sustainability: From Social Responsibility to Social Impact.’
The award was received on behalf of the bank by Mr Olufemi Ojo-Omoniyi, Head, Markets, Liquidity & Sustainability Risk, Sterling Bank.
He thanked the organisers of the award for recognising the efforts of the lender in the financial inclusion space, adding that the bank remains committed to improving access to finance among under-banked and unbanked Nigerian adults.
Sterling bank was the first bank to commence the agent banking initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by launching the new model at Makoko area of the Lagos metropolis.
Besides agent banking, Sterling Bank is also at the forefront of driving Non-Interest Banking services in the country, a development, which accounted for 48 per cent increase in its gross earnings for the third quarter of 2017.
Under the CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme aimed at increasing the cultivation of rice in the country, Sterling Bank, in collaboration with the apex bank, has disbursed loans to about 22,000 farmers in Kebbi State who were largely under-banked and unbanked.
The loan was structured under the Nigeria Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture Lending (NISRAL) and each beneficiary got N250,000 loan, which is currently raising household income in Kebbi.
Sterling Bank has also put in place Extensive Agent Network to ensure that farmers in the rural areas have urgent and easy access to loans without using the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
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