Vibrant financial institution, Polaris Bank has been adjudged the leading bank with the best digital platform and support for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).
Polaris Bank’s home-grown digital bank, VULTe was awarded as the Best Digital Bank at both BusinessDAY’s Banks And Other Financial Institutions (BAFI) Awards and The Nigerian Fintech Awards 2022. This is the second time the bank will be winning the same BAFI award.
In the last 12 months, VULTe which hitherto catered more to individual customers, now has enhanced capabilities to render seamless self-services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), high net worth, and retail customers. With this, over 40 million MSME operators in Nigeria could now access collateral-free loans for personal and business purposes; where eligible entrepreneurs and SME operators could apply and get up to N20 million in a space of five minutes without visiting the bank in person.
The Nigerian Fintech Awards is Nigeria’s biggest and most recognised Fintech award.
In the citation of Polaris Bank’s VULTe read by the organisers of The Fintech Awards 2022, VULTe was preferred ahead of others in its competitive set on certain key parameters.
These include convenience, intuitiveness, trust and efficacious management system.
“For a digital bank that provides convenient account opening in minutes, intuitive loan application, scheduled payments, personal digital card management, trustworthy security, and personal finance management, VULTe by Polaris Bank is hereby declared the winner of the Best Digital Bank category,” the organisers announced.
BAFI Awards organisers stated that the awards selection and review committee voted Polaris Bank’s VULTe the winner having outperformed its industry peers, like ALAT and OneBank across eight metrics for consideration.
The metrics included; strength of strategy for attracting and gaining digital customers, accelerated user engagement, success in getting clients to use digital offerings, growth of digital customers, and platform security.
Other metrics were the breadth of product offerings for retail and corporate clients, evidence of tangible benefits gained from digital initiatives and web/mobile site design, intuitiveness and functionality.
At the same BAFI Awards Polaris Bank was declared ‘MSME Bank of the Year’ ahead of FCMB and Fidelity Bank in what the organisers described as the bank’s expansive impact on MSME operators across Nigeria.
Polaris Bank in May this year launched a N1 billion fund for MSMEs in partnership with Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) in what the bank explained was aimed at providing the much-needed funding to create wealth and empower entrepreneurs and players within the MSME space in Nigeria, starting with Lagos.
Polaris Bank has committed multibillion financing to MSME operators across sectors, health inclusive among other incentives, like moratorium on facilities granted to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses.
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
